Pakistan Cricket Board chief executive officer Wasim Khan is confident the latest edition of the Pakistan Super League will be completed later this year.
The 2020 PSL ended early last month, as a preventative measure against the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. The Multan Sultans topped the points table at the time. The Lahore Qalandars, Karachi Kings and Peshawar Zalmi, too, had qualified for the semi-finals.
“We're currently looking at when we can reschedule the remaining matches to be played, and we're confident we'll get those done at the back end of the year, subject to obviously all things going well,” Khan told ESPNcricinfo.
“From our point of view, the first point of call is to try and ensure that we get the remaining matches played. There are two small windows that we have identified at the back end of the year.
“Ideally, you probably need no more than three or four days. So we're just working that out. We're going to be taking the views of the franchise owners into it, get their views on it, look at what potential format we can play.
“If you remember, initially it was based on qualifiers, eliminators and then the final, and then we moved to semi-finals and a final based on the shorter window because of safety reasons around the coronavirus. We are looking at that, and we are confident that we can get that done.
“There's no fun, right, in just handing it over to Multan at the moment? Although they'll probably be pushing for that. Our first point of call is to make that happen.
“If it can't happen then as other leagues around the world have done is to then declare a winner. Multan being on top, that would probably be the case.”
Full PSL in Pakistan
This was the first year the PSL was staged entirely in Pakistan. Previously, the tournament had been hosted in part or fully in the United Arab Emirates.
“For the first time we'd brought the whole of the PSL back to Pakistan. It was a huge undertaking to do that, and to see close to 600,000 fans turn up at four venues across 26 matches – for us, that was a huge success. The PCB staff worked day and night to make that happen,” added Khan.
“Despite the fact we had to postpone at the semi-final stage, we felt it was a massive, massive success, particularly based off the feedback we've had from round the world.”
