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Shaheen Shah Afridi, Babar Azam, and Muhammad Rizwan have not been granted No-Objection Certificates (NOCs) by the Pakistan Cricket Board for the Global T20 in Canada. The PCB announced in a statement that it has chosen not to issue these NOCs “after consulting with the selection committee and the three players.”
The decision was made not long after Naseem Shah’s NOC to play the Hundred was been down by the PCB last week. Birmingham Phoenix had signed Naseem to a contract that would have paid him GBP 125,000.
he 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 extent to which the players in question are available internationally seems to be a determining factor in the PCB’s refusal of NOCs. The PCB has taken action to bar red-ball cricket players from tournaments in the days preceding the series against Bangladesh in August due to the hectic Test schedule in the months ahead. Usama Mir, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Nawaz and Asif Ali recently received NOCs for multiple T20 tournaments.
It is a big choice to remove Naseem from the Hundred and three other well-known players from the Canadian league. Two international franchise contests per year were permitted under the three-year central contracts that the PCB and the players signed last year, provided that they did not conflict with international commitments.
The decision to remove the players from leagues that do not directly conflict with international cricket is expected to cause dissatisfaction among the affected players and raise questions about whether the allowance made in central contracts is being respected in spirit, even though the contracts do state that the PCB has the right to refuse NOCs if it feels it is in the best interests of the Pakistan team.
Afridi specifically had declared last month that he was pulling out of the Hundred, indicating that he anticipated to be permitted to play in the Global T20 Canada. Over the course of the next month, the NOC rejections will affect more than just the leagues. Pakistan’s cricket schedule runs from October 2024 to May 2025, almost nonstop.
They play eight white-ball matches in New Zealand, the PSL, a home Champions Trophy, a home tri-series between South Africa and New Zealand, a home Test series against the West Indies, a home Test series against Australia, and three home Test matches against England. It is anticipated that during that time, which coincides with a flurry of T20 competitions, the PCB will not consider any requests for NOCs from all-format players.