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The Indian Premier League and the Pakistan Super League will be hosted just a month apart in 2017. While India will be hosting the tenth edition of its T20 tournament, it will only be the second season of its Pakistani counterpart.
Since its inception, IPL has become the biggest T20 cricket league - the stars, the money, the fans and the records; its all here. Even though it’s a little late to the party, the PSL has managed to enjoy a fair share of success, but nothing that came close to the Indian tournament.
Both leagues follow the same tournament format, but here’s how IPL and PSL differ from each other.
Players
From the West Indian likes of Chris Gayle and Sunil Narine to the South African players like AB De Villiers and David Miller, and of course, the Indian megastars, top cricketers from around the world flocked to the subcontinent when the tournament was launched. While only a few Pakistanis played the IPL, none of the Indian players participated in PSL.
Pakistan was the among the last Test playing nations to host a T20 league, but still attracted some big name including Shane Watson, Dwayne Smith and Chris Gayle in the first season, and a whole lot of viewership from the nation’s cricket fans.
In the IPL, a team can acquire players through five ways: annual auction, signing domestic players, signing uncapped players, trading players, and signing replacements. PSL, on the other hand, holds a draft where players are categorized in five groups – Diamond, Silver, Platinum, Gold and Emerging.
Teams
Since its inception in 2008, the Indian Premier League has had at least eight teams in every season. The PSL on other hand, has just five teams - Peshawar Zalmi, Islamabad United, Lahore Qalandars, Quetta Gladiators and Karachi Kings.
The IPL has always boasted of encouraging young cricketing talent from around the nation, and allows no more than ten overseas players out of the maximum of 27. The Pakistani league on the other hand, has a restriction of only four foreign players and a minimum of 12 local ones.
Duration of Tournaments
The Pakistan Super League comprises just 24 matches, with each team playing the other twice. Therefore, the event ends in less than a month. The IPL on the other hand goes on for over a month, keeping the audiences engaged for a longer period. This year the IPL season will start on 5 April and end on 21 May while PSL will go on from 9 February to 7 March.
Monetary Comparison
The winners of the 2016 IPL got a staggering Rs 20 crore ($ 3 million), an amount that was the total prize money in its first edition. The PSL on the other hand, offered a million dollars in total as the prize money in its first edition.
Even during their respective first teams auctions, the total money generated in the IPL was $723.5 million as opposed to PSL’s $18.6 million.
Pakistan Lacks Glam Quotient
Breaking into a dance on the sidelines of the ground, every time there was a boundary or wicket, the cheerleaders became the much spoken-about glamour quotient of the Indian Premier League since its first season. Pakistani league on the other hand has let its audiences concentrate on the game itself. They can, however, enjoy performances by Ali Zafar, Shehzad Roy and Jamaican singer Shaggy on the opening ceremony of the PSL this year.
PSL Has One Thing That IPL Doesn’t - Shoaib Akhtar
Everything in the PSL has been bigger or better but one thing that they have and the IPL doesn’t is Shoaib Akhtar. Six years after he retired from international cricket, the former Pakistan fast bowler is donning an all new avatar. Besides hosting cricket TV shows, he is also Islamabad’s bowling coach. But, isn’t he like the Salman Khan of cricket commentary?
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