Young Talent on show in PSL2

Islamabad- Pakistan Super League (PSL) is the biggest sports event in the history of Pakistan. After a successful season one in 2016, the second season of PSL started with more international players, promotion and showcase of new talent.

PSL is a great platform for young players to showcase their talent. In 2016, Pakistan got three talented bowlers out of which two – Mohammad Nawaz and Hassan Ali –  are part of the Pakistan National Team. The third one was Mohammad Asghar, who failed to debut but was impressive and might get a chance to represent Pakistan soon.

Before the start of the season two, Lahore Qalandars and Karachi Kings started talent hunt in their respective provinces and found many skilful players. They picked the best ones for their team for PSL 2017. There is a long list of players out of which few got a chance to represent their teams in this season. The most prominent one is Mohammad Irfan Junior – who is a son of a bus driver – who had immense talent but could not go ahead in his cricketing career due to lack of financial support. The young talented bowler took seven wickets in six matches and troubled many great batsmen. Another young talent is Shadab Khan, who plays for Islamabad United, snatched nine wickets with the economy rate of 6.61 this season. Amad Butt and Hassan Khan are also talented bowlers who showed good performance for their respective franchises. Islamabad United’s pacer, Rumman Raees famous for his distinctive ‘royal celebration’ played well for his respective franchise and has become the most talked-about local talent.

Other than these emerging players, some other young players stood up and expressed their talent. One of them is Fakhar Zaman, the classy batsman, who dominated almost every opposition who scored 158 runs so far with a strike rate of 142 and is also the fourth highest run scorer of this season. Second player is Usama Mir, who rocked in the final over against Peshawar Zalmi by dismissing Shahid Afridi – who was batting on 54 – and almost took his team to victory but this youngster controlled his nerves and dismissed the veteran all-rounder, Afridi and sealed his team’s first ever victory against Peshawar Zalmi.

This season of PSL two, despite producing great young bowlers again failed to produce batsmen with high calibre batting talent. Maybe, in the next seasons of the PSL, they will be able to showcase more local talented batsmen.

Editor: Ayesha Shaukat Khan

Comments