PSL 2022 to be staged in January-February window and will avoid clash with IPL

The seventh edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) will be played in January-February 2022 as confirmed by the PCB in the recent turn of events. PCB came up with the announcement after consulting the six involved franchises in the league. The tournament is slated to begin in the early weeks of January and will stretch till the third week of February.

PCB is sure to take this schedule of PSL ahead despite having a clash of dates with Australia’s BBL. Lahore and Karachi are expected to host 17 matches each of PSL 2022. It has to be noted that PCB were not left with any other option to host the next edition of PSL as they had to avoid many other clashes.

The regular window of PSL in February-March since 2016 but the men in green are expecting to host Australia in 2022 and that pushed PCB to work on the alternate options. Moving it to April-May certainly affects them as IPL is held in that window and certain broadcasting issues are also there. It would also affect the availability of overseas players if IPL clashes with PSL and the same month also has Ramzan in it.

PSL 2022 to deal with weather issues also in January-February

Somehow PCB would be managing to host PSL in the January-February window even when they would have to deal with weather issues too. The Punjab province of Pakistan has a lot of foggy weather in January and hence PCB will begin staging matches from Karachi and will then travel to Lahore when it would be favourable over there. The PSL schedule for the last two seasons got marred by the COVID-19 pandemic as it had to be stopped midway and was then resumed later. The sixth edition saw the final staging at the UAE where Multan Sultans emerged victorious.

The IPL 2021 too got disturbed by the second wave of COVID-19 in India. It also had to be stopped midway and will see its 2nd phase unfolding in the UAE. However, several overseas players would be unavailable for the UAE leg.