(ESPN) The Pakistan Cricket Board has refused No-Objection Cetificates (NOCs) to Shaheen Shah Afridi, Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan for the Global T20 in Canada. In a statement, the PCB said it had decided against issuing these NOCs “after consulting with the three players and the selection committee”.
The decision comes shortly after the PCB also refused Naseem Shah’s NOC to play the Hundred last week. Naseem had been signed by Birmingham Phoenix in a deal that would have seen him earn GBP 125,000.
As ESPNcricinfo reported a few days earlier, the PCB was expected to deny NOCs to all four players owing to their status as all-format international cricketers, and have cited the heavy upcoming international schedule as the reason: “It should be remembered that between August 2024 and March 2025, the Pakistan cricket team has to play nine Tests of the ICC World Test Championship, the ICC Champions Trophy, 14 ODIs and nine T20Is. All three cricketers play all three formats and Pakistan will need their services in the next eight months.”
The PCB’s denial of NOCs appears contingent on the extent of international availability of the players concerned. Usama Mir, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Nawaz and Asif Ali recently received NOCs for multiple T20 tournaments, but with the busy Test schedule in the months ahead, the PCB has moved to prevent red-ball cricketers from tournaments in the days leading up to the series against Bangladesh in August.
The decision to pull three marquee players out of the league in Canada, as well as Naseem from the Hundred, is significant. The three-year central contracts the PCB and the players signed last year allowed for two overseas franchise competitions per year, as long as those did not clash with international commitments. While the contracts do state the PCB has the right to refuse NOCs if it feels it is in the best interests of the Pakistan team, the decision to withdraw the players from leagues which do not directly clash with international cricket is set to cause discontent among players affected, and questions around whether the allowance made in central contracts is being respected in spirit.
Afridi, in particular, had expected to be allowed to take part in the Global T20 Canada, even announcing a pullout from the Hundred last month. The NOC rejections are set to go further than just the leagues over the next month. Pakistan have a virtually non-stop cricketing schedule from October 2024 to May 2025.
They play three Tests against England at home, followed by limited-overs series in Australia, Zimbabwe and South Africa, a Test series in South Africa, a home Test series against West Indies, a home tri-series featuring South Africa and New Zealand, a home Champions Trophy, eight white-ball games in New Zealand, and the PSL. It is understood the PCB will entertain no NOC requests during that period for all-format players, which coincides with a spate of T20 leagues.
Bangladesh are scheduled to arrive in Pakistan in mid-August, with two Tests in Rawalpindi and Karachi beginning on August 21 and August 30 respectively.
