Shashank Manohar President of the BCCI has decided to be magnanimous and welcome back to the BCCI fold all the truant players who had the temerity to join the ICL. But this magnanimity is, of course conditional: the players must sever all ties with the ICL by 31 May and even then, as ‘punishment’ they will get to play only domestic cricket for a year. International cricket assignments will have to wait for a year. Supposedly this decision was taken when some ICL members and their representatives met with the BCCI and admitted that it was a mistake for them to have joined ICL. So it was a case of ‘repent and ye shall be granted pardon’.

Reportedly two of ICL’s leading players, Rohan Gavaskar and Hemant Badani have called this a positive decision and good for the players. "Some of us have been stuck with the ICL and not knowing where we are headed cricket-wise, especially after the March programme was cancelled. Some of the ICL money due to us was not coming through either, possibly due to the recession. But mostly some of us were frustrated because there just hasn't been enough cricket for us in the ICL. Of course, we played some good cricket in the ICL but not the quantity we expected," Badani was quoted as having said in the cricket news.

New Zealand is one country that has suffered considerably due to the blanket ban on players associated with the ICL and New Zealand cricket has already indicated that the so called ‘cooling period’ of one year in domestic cricket before returning to international cricket may be waived in case of their players. New Zealand is missing the services of players such as pacer Shane Bond and others.

Pakistan is the country with the most number of international players in the ICL, as many as 19. Many of those players are of the calibre to be able to represent their country; for instance Mohammad Yousuf, Abdul Razzaq and Imran Nazir. So the Pakistan cricket board has deemed that they will consider the cooling off period on a case to case basis. It is PCB’s position that ICL players must resign from the ICL if they are to be considered for selection of by the PCB. There is also considerable public pressure on the PCB to bring back to the international team, the ICL players.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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