LAHORE — Pakistani cricket officials announced Tuesday an overall profit of $2.6 million from the country's first ever Twenty20 league.
The five-team franchise-based event was held in the United Arab Emirates earlier this year in an attempt to boost Pakistan's cricket standards, which have been badly hit by the suspension of international tournaments since the 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore.
Pakistan Super League (PSL) chairman Najam Sethi described the profit as a welcome sign.
"Fortunately we had a $2.6 million dollar profit but since the franchises incurred some losses we decided to give $2 million to them and reduced our profit to $0.6 million," Sethi said at a news conference.
He said around $6 million was earned from television rights and gate money.
Islamabad beat Quetta to win February's inaugural PSL, which featured top international players such as Chris Gayle, Darren Sammy, Shane Watson, Kevin Pietersen, Luke Wright and Shakib Al Hasan.
Sethi said a sixth team was likely to be added next year after negotiations.
"PSL was successful and there is huge demand to add one more team," he added.
Sethi said Pakistan's young cricketers would benefit from the PSL, just as the Indian Premier League had helped India, by allowing them to play alongside experienced international stars.
Pakistan rises to third in Test rankings
Pakistan moved up to the third position in the ICC Test Rankings, placed just below India with a difference of just a point, while Australia went six points clear at the top, announced cricket’s global body on it’s website Tuesday.
Pakistan benefitted from the annual update as its 2012-13 series defeat against South Africa no longer counts while the 2-0 loss to Sri Lanka in 2014-15 has it’s weighing reduced to half.
South Africa, though, has quite heavily suffered from the update as its series wins against England, Australia and New Zealand also dropped from the rankings calculation.
West Indies also dropped points as its triumphs against New Zealand, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh lost any mathematical value.
The gap between the West Indies and ninth-ranked Bangladesh slashed from 29 points to just eight points.
Pakistan is set to visit England later this summer as it takes on the host in a four-match Test series which will significantly impact the rankings again.
Sri Lanka will also tour England right before Pakistan to play three Test matches and will host Australia in July.
