ISLAMABAD // The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) must reconsider its blanket national ban on its players participating in the unsanctioned Indian Cricket League (ICL), the new PCB director general Javed Miandad said. "I feel that there is a public pressure on us because Pakistani players (competing in ICL) are performing well," the former national captain Miandad said. "Look at Sri Lanka they have already lifted the (domestic) ban on their players who are playing in the ICL.
"Gradually the pressure is rising because ultimately it's the cricketers who are suffering." Currently, players taking part in the ICL are banned from playing for Pakistan, because the Twenty20 league runs in competition to the officially sanctioned Indian Premier League. Other nations have done the same, as the ICL is not recognised by the International Cricket Council. The ex-skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq leads the Lahore Badshahs team in the ICL, which is made up of Pakistani players. The team won the most recent competition.
The batsmen Imran Nazir, Imran Farhat, Mohammad Yousuf, the all-rounders Rana Naved and Abdul Razzaq and the pace bowlers Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammad Sami are among the 19 Pakistani players, who are competing in the ICL. Miandad, scorer of a national record 8,832 runs in 124 Tests, said that Pakistan and India feel the worst effect from the ICL ban. "I am a firm believer that whoever performs well, should be given a proper chance at the highest level of cricket. "But at the moment many talented cricketers are under suspension in both India and Pakistan despite performing brilliantly in the ICL," he added.
The new chairman of the PCB Ejaz Butt said last month that the ICC has already been warned by its lawyers of problems ahead if it is sued by the ICL. *AP