Steven Smith will participate in the Pakistan Super League this year for the first time. Sialkot Stallionz, one of the two franchises debuting in 2026, unveiled Smith as the tournament's first direct signing. While Smith, 36, has not featured for the Australian T20I side in two years, he will come to the PSL off the back of a stellar Big Bash League season, where he helped his side, Sydney Sixers, finish as runners-up. In the tournament, he scored 299 runs, averaging just under 60 runs per game at a strike rate of 167.97. He also hit a century and two fifty runs. He opened the batting for the Sixers alongside Babar Azam, who had a more subdued BBL, in a number of games. There is a distinctly Australian flavour to the Stallionz, who were bought by Hamza Majeed, a Pakistani-Australian real estate magnate, paying a franchise fee of PKR 1.85 billion a year (USD 6.55 million), the highest off all eight sides. Tim Paine, a former captain of Australia, was named the team's head coach for 2026 this past week. Paine wrote on X, "One of the great players of all time is a PSL Stallionz!" "Excellent for both our franchise and the PSL T20." A full auction for the 11th season of the PSL takes place on February 11, the first time squads will be filled in this way instead of a draft. Between 16 and 20 players, including five to seven international signings, will be allowed for each team. Once brought in, players will be engaged to two-year contracts with their franchise, with the stipulation applying both to retained players and those snapped up at the auction. Each side will have to pick one local player under the age of 23 who is yet to play the PSL. Smith's signing was enabled by a new rule that allowed franchises to directly sign one player outside the scope of the auction itself, with an increased purse allowed to accommodate that signing. The auction purse for each franchise is PKR 450 million (USD 1.6 million), but it can be increased to PKR 505 million (USD 1.8 million) for direct signings. The PSL season starts on March 26, with the final on May 3.