‘No Pakistani players in T10 will cause serious damage’

DUBAI: The Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) has robustly protested the PCB’s decision to not allow Pakistani players to participate in the T10 League.

And several accounts suggest that, according to the PCB at least, the decision to revoke the NOCs came from the board patron and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. The PCB originally allowed players to be drafted in the league but unexpectedly revoked the permission last week. In a statement, the PCB said that the decision had been taken “to manage the players’ workload, continued work on their fitness levels (and) to ensure primacy and participation of its player in its premier Quaid-e-Azam Trophy”.

The decision is a significant blow to this season of the T10 tournament, scheduled to begin on November 15, which was set to feature 16 top Pakistan players. The ECB’s vice-chairman Khalid Al Zarooni sent a letter last week to the PCB chairman Ehsan Mani that the decision is directly hurting the UAE government’s stakes in the tournament, and urged the Pakistani board to change its mind.

Mani is believed to have told the ECB vice-chairman on the phone about the Prime Minister’s role in the decision. He also advised the ECB to engage directly with Imran, through a senior UAE minister Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak al Nahayan (copied in ECB’s original letter) to find a resolution.

The ECB is thought to be weighing up the option of raising the issue of government interference in the PCB’s affairs with the ICC.

“We are extremely concerned by this late decision and are surprised to see that the decision has been taken without engaging any of the Abu Dhabi T10 league or Emirates Cricket Board members,” Zarooni’s letter to Mani read, a copy of which ESPNcricinfo has seen.