Lahore Badshahs to leave for ICL today

A big contingent of Pakistani players will leave today for New Delhi to take part in the second edition of the Indian Cricket League and will feature in the tournament as the “Lahore Badshah`s” team. One of he contracted players told reporters that the 16 players signed by the ICL from Pakistan would appear in the tournament as the Lahore Badshah`s to add spice to the event. The ICL organisers have designed a special Shalwar Kameez and waistcoat as the official dress of the Lahore Badshah team members to identify them with Pakistan. The players include former captain Inzamam-ul-Haq, Abdul Razzaq, Imran Farhat, Taufiq Umar, Azhar Mahmood, Shabbir Ahmed, Rana Naved, Mohammad Sami, Hasan Rana, Naved Latif, Shahid Nazir, Mushtaq Ahmed, Humayun Farhat, Imran Nazir and Arshad Khan. The big exodus of players from Pakistan to the ICL comes despite some very stringent measures taken by the Pakistan Cricket Board to discourage players from joining the league which is not recognised by any of the member boards of the International Cricket Council (ICC). The measures include not considering such players for national selection, banning them from domestic competitions and also refusing to give NOC`s to players for joining English counties this season. Rana Naved the former Pakistan pacer who is one of the affected players has refused to back out of his ICL deal despite a move by the board not to clear him to take up a contract with Yorkhire this season But Rana made it clear he would respect his contractual terms with the ICL. “I have made a commitment and I will honour it no matter what happens. The board is today making things difficult for me by telling my county they have nothing to do with me and will not give me a NOC to play county cricket,” he said. But I don`t care because as it is the board broke my spirit when no one bothered to find how I was doing when last year I was down with a shoulder injury and required medical assistance,” he said. Some of the other players also told reporters they had joined the ICL after being disillusioned with the PCB policies and had no intention of backing out of their ICL deals. Our lawyer SM Zafar has also been very busy handling constitutional and other election related petitions,” he said. PCB`s senior official Shafqat Naghmi said the board`s policies on the ICL remained unchanged and the players who had signed up for them would have to live with the consequences until the matter was resolved.

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