The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has turned down requests for a 'No Objection Certificate' (NOC) from senior players including Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan and Shaheen Shah Afridi to participate in Canada's Global T20 League.
Following Pakistan's early exit from the T20 World Cup 2024, the Pakistan board had announced that they will restrict all players who are involved in playing all three formats for the national team, from playing in foreign T20 leagues, to manage workload.
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Initially, they had rejected Naseem Shah's request for an NOC to play in England's The Hundred competition. Senior players Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan and Shaheen Afridi had expected that their NOC would be cleared to play in the Global T20 League, starting on July 25.
Why did the PCB reject NOCs for Pakistan players Babar Azam, Shaheen Afridi and Mohammad Rizwan?
The PCB released a statement citing the reasons for rejecting the NOCs of the three senior Pakistan players, preventing them from participating in the Global T20 League.
The primary reason for the rejection is because the board expects the senior players to manage their workload, ahead of a hectic international schedule in the upcoming months.
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"The PCB had received NOC requests from Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan and Shaheen Afridi for the Global T20 event, amongst other players. After taking into consideration Pakistan's busy and packed cricket calendar in the period from August 2024 to March 2025, which includes nine ICC World Test Championship matches and next year's ICC Champions Trophy 2025 and following consultations with the three players as well as the national selection committee, it has been decided to decline their requests,” PCB said in a statement.
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PCB defended their decision saying that the three players, who are integral members of the national cricket team, needed to rest as they will be expected to play a lot of cricket in the coming months.
"The three are all-format cricketers and their services are expected to be required in the upcoming eight months during which Pakistan will play nine Tests, 14 ODIs, and nine T20Is,"
"As such, and in line with the PCB's workload management policy, it is in the best interest of Pakistan cricket and the players that they skip the upcoming event in Canada so that they are in their best mental and physical shape for the season, which commences with the two-Test series against Bangladesh," the statement said.
PCB's new workload management policy is only applicable to all-format players, who will be part of the Test, T20 and ODI format of the game.
Keeping up with the policy, the board approved NOCs for Asif Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Nawaz, to participate in the Global T20 League, while Usman Qadir had his NOC approved to play in The Hundred competition starting on July 23.
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