PCB provides NoC to 43 Pakistan players who will be listed in BBL draft

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has given no-objection certificates (NOCs) to 43 players who will be listed in the overseas draft of the Big Bash League (BBL) only a few weeks after rejecting a list of players earlier.

Initially, there was a list of 98 overseas players on the list, who had put their names forward for the BBL draft, which was put out last month, and there were no Pakistanis on the list. Trent Boult, Andre Russell, Jason Roy and Shadab Khan are among the notable players in the new batch of nominees.

Some of the other Pakistanis on the list are Sarfaraz Ahmed, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Hafeez, Kamran Akmal, Wahab Riaz and Umar Akmal. None of the all-format players such as Mohammad Rizwan, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Babar Azam, are among the BBL nominations. They will be part of the team for the home series against England after the T20 World Cup, and the white-ball series against New Zealand and West indies.

Shadab, Asif Ali to be partially available for BBL

Most of the Pakistani players who are part of the BBL overseas draft are unlikely to be available for international games or Pakistan’s domestic tournament Quaid-e-Azam Trophy which collides with the upcoming BBL. Meanwhile, batter Asif Ali, who was a certain pick in the national team squad, was part of the earlier batch, which was denied the NOCs, but is in the current batch.

If picked, Shadab, Asif and Shahnawaz Dahani are likely to be partially available for the upcoming BBL according to ESPNCricinfo. This is due to their national team commitments around the time with bilateral series also coming up. Pakistan will be next in action in the Asia Cup 2022 in the UAE, which is set to commence on August 27. 

Pakistan’s campaign will begin the next day as they clash with India in Group A. They go into the tournament on the back of a 3-0 ODI series win over the Netherlands. Their star bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi has been ruled out of the tournament due to a right knee ligament injury, and Mohammad Hasnain has been named as his replacement.