Pakistan t20 world cup squad 2022

The eighth edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) ended on Saturday with Lahore Qalandars emerging as the winners. The Shaheen Afridi -led side defeated Multan Sultans by 1 run in a thrilling summit clash. Opting to bat first, the Qalandars posted a huge total of 200/6 in 20 overs with Abdullah Shafique smashing 65 off 40 balls and Shaheen playing a quick knock of 44* off just 15 balls. Later, the Sultans were restricted at 199/8 as the Qalandars lifted their second PSL title. As the thrilling T20 league of Pakistan is now over, the fans are gearing up for the 16th edition of Indian Premier League (IPL), which will kick-start from March 31.

IPL is regarded as the richest and the most loved T20 league in the world, due to it’s massive fan-following and nail-biting action. However, Pakistan Cricket Board Chief Najam Sethi has now come up with a shocking opinion regarding the two leagues and stated that PSL is a bigger success than IPL in terms of digital ratings.

“Let’s talk about digital. PSL was only at the half stage, so I asked about our digital rating. Najam Sethi show used to have a 0.5 rating on TV, whereas PSL is getting a rating of more than 11. So, it would be 18 or 20, when it completes,” Sethi said in a press conference ahead of the PSL final.

“Over 150 million people watched it digitally. It is not a small thing. At the same stage, IPL’s digital rating was 130 million and PSL’s is more than 150 million. So this is a great success for Pakistan”, he added.

Talking about IPL, the first match of the cash-rich league will be played between the defending champions Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings, at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.

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The world cricket’s ecosystem is slowly seeing a paradigm shift towards franchise cricket and the entry of Indian Premier League franchises in the United States through the inaugural edition of Major League Cricket (MLC) could be a significant step in that direction. With Kolkata Knight Riders (Los Angeles), Chennai Super Kings (Texas), Mumbai Indians (New York) and Delhi Capitals (Seattle Orcas) taking ownership or making significant investments in four of the six franchises (the other two being Washington Freedom and San Francisco Unicorns), the cricketing landscape is going to change forever.

Even the two franchises which don’t have IPL investments are also owned by persons of Indian origin. San Francisco Unicorns’ top investors are Venture Capitalists Venky Hariharan and Anand Rajaraman, who have got Australian state side Victoria on board.

Washington Freedom is owned by Indian American Sanjay Govil along with New South Wales state cricket body from Australia. Not to forget Seattle has Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella as one of the investors.

But the IPL franchises are now expanding their bouquet of teams across leagues in the West Indies, UAE, South Africa and now US is another untapped market that wasn’t being explored for a long time despite the Asian diaspora craving for some regular cricket show at least once a year.

On Monday, early morning India time (Sunday night in Houston), the likes of former Australia captain Aaron Finch (San Francisco), Quinton de Kock (Seattle Orcas), a former South African skipper and even now a batting mainstay, premier pacer Anrich Nortje (Washington), Sri Lanka’s top T20 freelancer Wanindu Hasaranga (Washington), dashing all-rounders Mitchell Marsh (Seattle) and Marcus Stoinis (SF Unicorns) are the first lot of quality internationals picked up by ‘Draft System’, which is a Major League thing.

In major US sports like basketball, baseball, there are no auctions held and only the draft picks, and hence that has been followed by the Major League Cricket as well.

“A private cricket league in the US is very different from private leagues in, say the UAE or South Africa. But in terms of revenue model, I expect the MLC to be much more successful in coming years,” said Hemant Dua, former CEO of erstwhile Delhi Daredevils, who has worked in franchise business model of sport for years.

Dua, then explained why USA has potential to be successful.

“Building infrastructure is the least of the problems in the US. Also, the Asian diaspora that (Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans) comprises of people with more white-collared jobs and more disposable income than majority of the Asian diaspora in the UAE.

“Plus the UAE league is more dependant on international players but Indians in US will support their locals too. You need to factor in all these issues. One thing what MLC organisers need to look at is Indian audience timings to garner greater broadcast revenue.”

We might see more retirements in future in India

The club versus country debate has been raging for some time. The BCCI doesn’t allow its active cricketers to play any other leagues apart from IPL but the start of Major League Cricket in US could see a lot of domestic retirements in India because of the propensity to migrate to the US.

Take the case of Unmukt Chand and Milind Kumar , who have found takers in the inaugural season after chucking their domestic cricket careers in India, which wasn’t going anywhere.

“If you are not ensured earning of at least 15 crore from IPL in five years, or you aren’t a top-line India international with endorsements and Rs 50-crore plus earnings, why would you stay back?” an IPL franchise source told PTI while discussing the possibilities.

“A retirement from all forms of cricket in India opens avenues to play multiple T20 leagues, earn at least 6-8 crore per year for 4-6 months of work and also maintain a fine work-life balance. But, yes, this holds true for only skilled T20 players with no ambitions of playing red-ball cricket and I can vouch, there are many,” he added.

While the ICC has already set the next five years’ FTP in place after consultation with the various major international cricket boards, the lure of six months of work and six months’ leave and plying trade in only private leagues, is a reality that is knocking hard on the establishment’s door.

Recently, the custodians of the game, MCC, after its annual meeting stated: “The men’s cricket schedule in 2023 is saturated with franchise competitions, which overlay and compete with the ICC Future Tours Programme (FTP) of bilateral international cricket, recently released until 2027. The only gap in the combined schedules this year is in October and November when the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup takes place in India.” The Federation of International Cricketers Association (FICA) had released its annual report a few months back which had stated that around 40 per cent of the current cricketers in the market are freelancers and there are 49 per cent, who are ready to reject central contract for plying trade in private leagues.

Some interesting days lie ahead for all the stakeholders in world cricket.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

No Indian opener has been able to replicate the clean hitting prowess of the great Virender Sehwag . Not only has he got two triple-centuries, his daredevilry with the bat made him an entertaining watch too. He was also part of India’s 2007 T20 World Cup and 2011 World Cup-winning teams. He played 104 Tests (8586 runs), 251 ODIs (8273 runs) and 19 T20Is (394 runs). He played his last match for India in March, 2013 against Australia. Now, Sehwag has revealed that in the current generation no Indian batter plays like him.

“I don’t think so there is any player in the Indian team who bats like me. The two players who came to my mind who have come close to it are Prithvi Shaw and Rishabh Pant . I think Rishabh Pant is a little bit close to what I used to bat like in Test cricket but he is satisfied with 90-100 but I used to get satisfied with 200, 250 and 300. If he took his game to that level then I think he can entertain the fans even more,” Sehwag said during News18 India Chaupal .

Recently, Sehwag commented on the frequent injuries suffered by the players of the senior men’s national cricket team. He felt that the weightlifting exercises often play a major role in the injury of the players, adding that the exercise has no role in cricket. Sehwag said that the players should focus more on their game rather than going for weightlifting. He feels that the Indian players nowadays are getting injured in the gym, not on the ground.

It is worth highlighting that the exercise has been quite popular nowadays among cricket players in a bid to build a strong physique.

“There is no place for weightlifting in cricket. Instead, you should do the exercises that improve your game. Weightlifting will give you strength, but will also increase stiffness and soreness. In our days, Aakash Chopra , Gautam Gambhir , Rahul Dravid , Sachin Tendulkar , Sourav Ganguly , VVS Laxman , MS Dhoni , or Yuvraj Singh , nobody were ruled out due to back, hamstring, or quadricep injuries,” said Sehwag on ‘The Ranveer Show’.

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