Courtesy: ECB/PSL
In a major turn of events, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has banned its players from competing in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) during their domestic season next year. As per their newly-drafted policy, which aims to keep the quality and integrity of domestic competitions intact, England would stop their players from being a part of PSL, Lanka Premier League (LPL), and a few other global leagues during their summer of cricket from April till September, except the Indian Premier League (IPL).
According to the report from the Telegraph, the policy from ECB will also prevent their players from participating in the two parallel leagues since it was a common practice for any cricketer to compete for a different team in a different tournament shortly after one of their teams were eliminated from another tournament. Moreover, the policy is expected to make the players focus on being a part of the County Championship, Vitality Blast, and the Hundred.
We need to protect the integrity of our sport and the strength of our competitions: Richard Gould
But, at the same time, the policy will not be preventing the white-ball-only contracts held by players with the ECB to play in the PSL and other global leagues. Furthermore, the players with contracts including First-class cricket will not be given the NoC required to participate in the aforementioned leagues apart from not being allowed to miss domestic white-ball games in favour of playing cricket overseas.
The Chief Executive of the ECB, Richard Gould, was quoted as saying about the matter, “We need to protect the integrity of our sport and the strength of our competitions in England and Wales as well. This policy gives clarity to players and professional counties around our approach to issuing No Objection Certificates.”
“It will enable us to strike the right balance between supporting players who want to take up opportunities to earn and gain experience while also protecting the integrity of cricket globally, ensuring we don’t undermine our own ECB competitions, and managing the welfare of centrally contracted England players,” he further added.
