Players' reservations on continuing PSL 2021 led to postponement: Wasim Khan

Pakistan Cricket Board chief executive, Wasim Khan, has stated that players had reservations regarding the continuation of PSL 2021, which led to the postponement of this year's tournament.

Speaking at a press conference at the National Stadium in Karachi, Wasim Khan said that the PCB had the option of deferring PSL 2021 by five days. However, the franchises revealed that several players were apprehensive about the tournament continuing in light of multiple players testing positive for COVID-19.

“We had an option to postpone the league for five days until we make sense of the situation. However, the franchises informed us that the players were not in a mental state to continue. Hence, we came to the conclusion that it was best to postpone the event. We are slowly and carefully exiting players from our environment so that we can safely get them out," said Wasim Khan.

On Thursday morning, three players tested positive for COVID-19, which took the tally cases in the PSL bio-bubble to seven - six players and one official. An emergency virtual meeting between the organizing committee of the PSL and the franchises was held and it was decided that the tournament would be indefinitely deferred.

Wasim Khan revealed that the PCB would search for a suitable window to conclude the tournament at a later time. He also announced that a thorough investigation would be conducted to evaluate the bio-bubble breaches during the tournament.

“We will fully investigate the breaches and we need to have a hard look at ourselves. This isn’t about shifting blame. The bio-secure bubble is all about trust and discipline. Building trust will take some time but we will make sure this doesn’t happen again. We are going to explore various windows as we want to finish PSL 2021 at a later time," said Wasim Khan.

It will be interesting to see how the PCB decides to stage the rest of PSL 2021. The year is already jam-packed with cricketing events including the 2021 Asia Cup and 2021 ICC Men's T20 World Cup.