The Pakistan cricket board (PCB) has been making all possible efforts to make its T20 tournament – Pakistan Super League (PSL) exciting and take to the greater heights in the world of the franchise tournament and even they succeed in many ways.
Several overseas have been now participating in the PSL which has often been compared with the standards of the Indian Premier League (IPL), although, Pakistan’s T20 league needs to address come areas to match IPL’s eminence and one of them is to attract the big stars like AB de Villiers.
Ahead of the resumption of the PSL 2021 in the UAE from June 9, PCB CEO Wasim Khan admitted that the PSL will take some time to reach the heights of the IPL while stressing the need to make the current ecosystem of the tournament profitable in order to earn more money so that they can spend on the players and attract big overseas stars like De Villiers.
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Khan told Cricket Pakistan, “At the moment, we are trying to develop the league. Before comparing it with IPL, we need to see that they are paying around 2-3 million dollars, per player, for high-level cricketers. As soon as we start paying that amount of money, we [PSL] will also attract top players.”
He added, “We need to make the current ecosystem of the PSL profitable so that more money is spent on players. Once we do that, PSL will also attract high-level players like AB de Villiers and others.”
The PCB CEO also insisted that the PSL’s present financial model isn’t sustainable and they are working continuously with the franchises to generate more income through the T20 event.
Khan further explained, “[Najam] Sethi keeps on saying that we have ruined PSL but if you look at the model, prepared under previous regimes, it was never financially sustainable for the franchises for the first 10 years.
We are working with the franchises on different models, in order to ensure that they generate more income. After six years, the franchises are yet to achieve profitability which is why our first priority is to make the model more sustainable.”
He signed off by saying, “This is also the reason why adding more teams to the PSL also not feasible right now. It is imperative that we make the league more sustainable for the franchises.”
(With Cricket Pakistan Inputs)
