National T20 Cup, 2017: Player draft summary

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) held the player draft on Thursday for the National T20 Cup which will be hosted by Multan and Faisalabad played in early September. Eight teams will be participating in the tournament and each of them got a chance to pick players from the categories, Pre-Allocated, Premium Batsman, Premium Bowlers, Free Picks and Emerging.

The Pre-Allocated set of players is divided among the eight teams by the PCB including the captains of the team even before the draft. Each team get 4 such players. During the draft, teams get to pick 3 Premium Batsman, two Premium Bowlers. Each team get to pick five players each from the Free Picks category and one Emerging player.

The eight teams who will be part of the tournament are Karachi Whites, Lahore Whites, Lahore Blues, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, FATA and Faisalabad.

This season will not witness the champions of the 2016 edition, Karachi Blues as they ended at the bottom in Pool A of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, the domestic first-class tournament. Lahore Blues, who finished at the bottom in the National T20 Cup last year, will feature this time as they ended up at 5th out of the 8 teams in the Pool A of Quad-e-Azam in 2016/17 season.

Here are the squads after the National T20 Cup 2017 player draft:

Faisalabad:

Pre-Allocated – Misbah-ul-Haq (c), Saeed Ajmal, Asif Ali, Faheem Ashraf

Premium Batsman – Sohaib Maqsood, Imran Butt, Khurram Shehzad

Premium Bowlers – Mohammad Sami, Taj Wali

Free Picks – Sahibzada Farhan, Yasir Shah, Ali Waqas, Imran Khalid, Ali Shan

Emerging – Asad Raza

FATA:

Pre-Allocated – Usman Shinwari (C), Rehan Afridi, Asif Afridi, Khushdil Shah

Premium Batsmen – Mukhtar Ahmed, Naved Malik, Awais Zia

Premium Bowlers – Bilawal Bhatti, Sameen Gul

Free Picks – Usama Mir, Hammad Azam, Mohammad Naeem, Nabi Gul, Irfan Rasheed

Emerging – Shaheen Shah

Islamabad:

Pre-Allocated – Imad Wasim (C), Hasan Ali, Zohaib Ahmed, Sarmad Bhatti

Premium Batsmen – Nauman Anwar, Adil Amin, Shan Masood

Premium Bowlers – Rahat Ali, Umar Gul

Free Picks – Shoaib Malik, Rohail Nazir, Ali Sarfraz, Shehzad Azam, Faizan Riaz

Emerging – Arsal Sheikh

Karachi Whites:

Pre-Allocated – Sarfraz Ahmed (C), Asad Shafiq, Anwar Ali, Ruman Raees

Premium Batsmen – Khurram Manzoor, Shahid Yousaf, Akbar-ur-Rehman

Premium Bowlers – Mir Hamza, Tabish Khan

Free Picks – Haris Sohail, Zulfiqar Babar, Danish Aziz, Azam Hussain, Jahid Ali

Emerging – Ibrar Ahmed

Lahore Blues:

Pre-Allocated – Mohammad Hafeez (C), Babar Azam, Ahmed Shehzad, Hussain Talat

Premium Batsmen – Imam-ul-Haq, Tayyab Tahir, Abid Ali

Premium Bowlers – Khalid Usman, Atif Jabbar

Free Picks – Mohammad Amir, Junaid Khan, Agha Salman, Saad Nasim, Adnan Akmal

Emerging – Ghulam Muddasar

Lahore Whites:

Pre-Allocated – Salman Butt (C), Wahab Riaz, Kamran Akmal, Umar Akmal

Premium Batsmen – Sami Aslam, Asif Ali, Asif Zakir

Premium Bowlers – Ehsan Adil, Mohammad Irfan Jr (FATA)

Free Picks – Aamer Yamin, Bilal Asif, Amad Butt, Raza Ali Dar, Azhar Ali

Emerging – Hassan Khan

Peshawar:

Pre-Allocated – Mohammad Rizwan (C), Zohaib Khan, Israr Ullah, Imran Khan jr

Premium Batsmen – Riffatullah, Musaddiq Ahmed, Naved Yasin

Premium Bowlers – Waqas Maqsood, Mohammad Imran

Free Picks – Fakhar Zaman, Sohail Khan, Kashif Bhatti, Imran Khan Sr., Usman Qadir

Emerging – Saif Badar

Rawalpindi:

Pre-Allocated – Umar Amin (C), Sohail Tanvir, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz

Premium Batsmen – Fawad Alam, Zain Abbas, Ahsan Ali

Premium Bowlers – Mohammad Irfan Jnr, Mohammad Abbas

Free Picks – Iftikhar Ahmed, Mohammad Asghar, Rameez Aziz, Nasir Nawaz, Adnan Ghaus

Emerging – Umair Maqsood