Ahmed Shehzad retires from PSL, says 'deliberate effort' to keep him out

Pakistan batter Ahmed Shehzad has retired from the Pakistan Super League (PSL) after blaming all six franchises for making a "deliberate effort" to keep him out of the competition.

He released a statement, giving a brief detail about the reasons for his not being a part of the PSL. He also hinted about taking offers from different franchises as his retirement from PSL does not mean that he is retiring from cricket in its entirety.

"I have tried really hard in domestic cricket consistently in the last few years, and did reasonably well in the National T20 Cup just before the PSL draft. There seems a deliberate effort to keep me out, even when franchises have opted for other performers with inferior numbers than me. But when everything is pre-planned, it doesn't really matter. I don't know whose responsibility it is to get top domestic performers in the PSL then," Ahmed said in his statement, according to ESPNcricinfo.

The 32-year-old last made his PSL appearance and represented Quetta Gladiators in 2020. With that franchise, he won the PSL trophy in 2019. In 2020, he didn't have an ideal tournament, scoring just 61 runs in seven innings.

Overall, he has scored 1077 runs in 45 PSL matches at a strike rate of 120.06, and he was also the first Pakistani to score a hundred in T20I cricket.