After the Pakistani players were banned from travelling to India in the wake of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the IPL terminated their contracts in February this year after the required period of acquiring the No Objection Certificate from Pakistan's cricket board expired.
Here's the kicker: Apparently the Pak players weren't even told their contracts had been terminated. They received no official notification from the IPL franchises, despite being entirely willing to sort out the matter. Salman Ahmed has said:
"We are even willing to travel to South Africa and sort out this matter with the IPL franchises."
The Pakistan players still want to be involved in the IPL, and why wouldn't they? But they received no written notice that their contracts had been terminated.
"It is in their contracts that a notice will be served before any such termination or suspension, but in this case nothing as such is indicated with any of the players."
Now that the IPL has been relocated to South Africa, there's nothing preventing the players from participating in it once more. Except for the fact they're no longer contracted by any IPL franchises.
Lalit Modi has told the Pakistani players that it is not possible to include them in this year's IPL because the franchises have already secured replacement players in February. But the IPL is going to attempt to liaise with the franchises to resolve this problem, Ahmed has been told.
And it should be, because if these players don't play, the IPL is going to be missing out on valuable contributions from players such as Salman Butt, Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul and Sohail Tanvir.
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3 comments:
Bear in mind that although most of the contracts were terminated, those of Umar Gul, Misbah, Tanvir, and Akmal were only suspended, hence in all probability they should still be allowed to play. Just non-suspend them.
Moreover, if the venues could be decided at the nth hour, why not the players? Esp the Pak ones who are in a sensitive situation due to security concerns.
Well Amy, Nobody will miss anybody.
If IPL can do without Hussey, Watson, Marsh, Ponting, Symonds etc.... so they can without Pak Players.
A ridiculously high proportion of foreign players won't be turning up for either part or all of the tournament. What a shame.
Q, there's a very narrow window now for the IPL to resolve this. I'm hoping it's done so, however, because I do want to see these players in the game, and it'd be a disappointment if willing players missed out. If the IPL's in talks about it, though, shouldn't continue to be too much of a problem.
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