T20 franchise leagues have become a supply chain for many cricket-playing nations for hunting local talent. Not only local talent but emerging cricketers across the globe also consider the franchise leagues as stages to showcase their skills in front of a global audience. The Pakistan Super League (PSL) is no exception.
PSL is one of the T20 leagues that came into existence after the emergence of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Despite visible differences, there are often comparisons between the two Leagues of the two rival nations.
PSL 2026 was only a 39-day league
During a discussion panel, Pakistan cricket legend Wasim Akram questioned the Pakistan Super League’s credibility in searching for talent from the grassroots level of the nation. Akram, with a cheeky smile on his face, took a jab at Pakistan’s own franchise cricket league. He did not even take the route to compare PSL with the other leading franchise leagues around the planet.
First, in his explanation, Wasim Akram pointed out the duration of PSL. The previous edition of the league lasted only 39 days, from March 26 to May 3, 2026. The duration of a PSL league is normally between 30 and 39 days.
In 2026, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) added two new franchises to the league to add more excitement with a wider window. Still, it lasted only thirty-nine days. According to Wasim Akram, the duration was not enough for the nation’s premier T20 league.
While IPL runs between 60 and 66 days to complete one season
On the other hand, the Indian Premier League runs with a window that lasts more than a couple of months. 60 to 66 days is the average period of an IPL season.
Australia’s Big Bash League also plays in a broader window compared to the PSL’s. The 2025-26 season of BBL spanned around 43 days, running from 14 December 2025 to 25 January 2026, and the upcoming season will host a 46-day tournament, starting from 12 December 2026 to 26 January 2027.
However, the former Pakistan pace bowler did not mention any other leagues in his explanation. But he mentioned an incident as an example. Wasim Akram said that he took a break after the beginning of one of the leagues, and when he came back from the break after one month, the league was still underway.
Wasim Akram shows the reality of PSL
Akram put his focus on the duration of the leagues to compare the Pakistan cricket team’s current position in international cricket with that of other top-tier teams in the world cricket rankings.
Wasim Akram believes that bigger windows will be more useful in protecting raw talent than leagues with smaller windows, like the Pakistan Super League. As bigger windows allow emerging young talents to stay in a well-maintained system for a long duration with international cricketers and coaches, it helps them grow into better cricketers in the future.
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“Quality, I suppose, if you compare it with other leagues, it’s difficult. But at least it was short and sweet compared to some other big leagues in the world. It was only 44 days. And the kids didn’t grow up. The kids didn’t stay the same.”
“There was one league; I had gone for a month’s leave, and that league was still going on. My daughter was 5 years old; she must have been 11 years old. The league was still going on,” Wasim Akram said in his response.
Source: cricketaddictor.com
