PSL 12 franchises must release a top-tier player to retain seven

Pakistan Super League franchises will be allowed to keep a maximum of seven players, including their direct signing, for the 12th edition of the tournament. Any franchise that uses the full retention allowance will have to release a player from the highest price tier of the previous auction into the general player pool.

All eight franchises approved the provision unanimously at a tournament operations workshop at Gaddafi Stadium on Thursday, the Pakistan Cricket Board said. The board said the mandatory release is meant to keep elite players available to every franchise at the auction while letting teams hold on to most of their existing squads.

Retentions must be submitted by January 13, ten days before the auction on January 23. Daily Times reported that the deadline was set so franchises can weigh performances in the National T20 Silver tournament, which will have finished by then, and the National T20 Gold competition, which is still running.

Salman Naseer, the PSL chief executive, chaired the workshop. "What made today remarkable was not just what was agreed, it was how it was agreed," he said in a statement. Naseer said every franchise engaged openly, the auction rules were worked through line by line, and all eight sides gave unanimous buy-in.

The PCB said the arrangement creates a "live, data-driven link" between domestic cricket and the league. A player in form in the National T20 Gold could, according to the board, "force his way into franchise thinking in real time".

Each franchise will work to a salary cap of Rs45 crore. The cap rises to Rs50.5 crore for a side that makes a direct signing for PSL 12, retains its direct signing from the previous season, or does both. Every franchise must spend at least Rs36.5 crore on its squad.

The direct signing window stays open until November 23, 2026. Each franchise may sign one marquee player directly, provided he did not feature in PSL 10 or PSL 11.

Daily Times reported that the January auction will be only the second in PSL history. Thursday's workshop also covered trade windows and squad sizes, and the PCB said further announcements on PSL 12 would be made in the coming weeks.

Yahoo Sports reported that Pakistan players had been warned about potentially losing overseas franchise opportunities, in a report that quoted criticism that the PCB is "making their lives even harder".