Homegrown Pakistan enter T20 cricket’s premier league

It’s probably heresy to even think it, but could the Pakistan Super League, a six-year-old six-team domestic competition, be the world’s strongest Twenty20 nursery? Orthodox logic says no. Of course the Indian Premier League, the all-star pageant that claims to be cricket’s NBA, NFL and Champions League rolled in together, has raised the income of every participant and the standard of the 20-over format as a whole. Innovation in cricket has been turbocharged by the IPL, where the best of the best are challenged to produce their best, under pressure, in an annual whirlwind of noise, music and dollars. If you’re not in the IPL, as Paul Keating might say, you’re camping out. And yet the young Pakistan team, none of whom are permitted to play in the IPL, came up with another performance, this time in Wednesday’s T20 World Cup semi-final at the Sydney Cricket Ground against New Zealand, to suggest that the IPL is not, or not exclusively, where it’s at.

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