Mumbai, January 28: Pakistan players could get a chance to play in the Indian Premier League but for that to happen, a lot of things need to fall in place. The first and foremost requirement is, of course, that the franchisees need to have a change of mind.
One way to bring Pakistan players in is through replacement. Each team can get a replacement if a foreign player in their roster gets injured before the start of the IPL. The replacement can be made from an exhaustive list of 96 players first released by the IPL.
There are about 12 Pakistan players in that list. But the catch here is that the foreign player will have to be certified ‘unfit’ for the entire length of IPL III, not a part of it. At this stage, only two franchisees have a slot to buy foreign players but one of them does not have the purse to buy any player.
Even as the furore over the franchisees’ refusal to buy Pakistan players is getting louder thanks to recent comments by home minister P Chidambaram and actor Shah Rukh Khan, IPL chairman Lalit Modi reiterated the league’s oft-repeated stance that the decision has to be made by the owners.
“We can only provide them the option of buying the players but we can’t force them. We did not have anything to do with the teams’ decisions not to buy Pakistan players,” Modi maintained.
Meanwhile, in a virtual u-turn, Shahid Afridi made it clear that he was ‘not interested’ in playing in the league. “I am not at all interested. The issue should have been sorted out before the auction,” Afridi said.
“I have forgotten what happened at the auction. Everybody in Pakistan is very disappointed and angry with the insult. So good luck to Modi and his IPL,” Afridi said.
The Pakistan T20 captain was also of the view that Shah Rukh and P Chidambaram’s statements have only vindicated Pakistan’s claim that their players have been insulted.
–IANS–