English Contingent Signed at APL Draft but ICC Sanction Remains the Sticking Point

Eight English players, among them Moeen Ali and Alex Hales, were signed at Tuesday’s draft for the inaugural Afghanistan Premier League, yet their involvement rests on an ICC sanction that has not been granted.

The ECB has indicated it will reluctantly issue No-Objection Certificates, partly to avoid potential restraint-of-trade implications. But any NOC will be contingent on the league receiving ICC approval. The approval process, which assesses minimum event staging standards including anti-corruption and anti-doping measures, remains ongoing. Whether sanction will ultimately arrive is unclear.

The governing body’s application form requires the relevant board to provide full details of franchise owners. Only three of the five APL franchises have been sold. Two teams, named ‘Team Paktia’ and ‘Team Balkh’, were given generic holding names at the draft.

Moral Questions and Withdrawals

Rob Key, England’s managing director, encouraged players last month to take “the right moral stance” and said he would not have played in the league himself due to “the way that women have been treated” in Afghanistan. The ECB refuses to play bilateral cricket against Afghanistan over the Taliban government’s treatment of women and girls, which United Nations experts have described as “gender apartheid”.

The draft followed a backlash that prompted Ollie Pope, Will Smeed and David Willey to withdraw. Tonia Antoniazzi, the Labour MP who led calls for England to boycott their Champions Trophy fixture against Afghanistan last year, told players to seriously consider the potential implications of signing up.

None of the eight English players signed are centrally contracted by the ECB. Hales, Moeen, Joe Clarke, Tymal Mills, Olly Stone, Luke Wood, Tom Moores and Chris Wood were the names taken. Mohammad Amir, the former Pakistan fast bowler, also entered the draft as a British citizen and secured a deal.

Scotland opener George Munsey was also signed, with Cricket Scotland expected to take a similar stance to the ECB on NOCs.

A League Still Taking Shape

The APL, run jointly by the Afghanistan Cricket Board and promoters Trans Group and ITW Universe, is due to launch on December 27. Its first season is scheduled for the UAE, though marketing material suggests an intention to host games at the Kabul International Cricket Stadium in future years.

Late captaincy switches added to the sense of a competition still finding its feet. Rahmanullah Gurbaz moved from Nangarhar Cosmic to Team Paktia, with Rahmat Shah moving in the opposite direction. The ACB described the change as a decision of the APL Technical Committee reached by mutual agreement between franchise owners and captains.

Nangarhar’s ambassador Mark Boucher was among those left bemused. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he told reporters. “It’s a dynamic that I don’t get involved in. It’s above my pay grade. I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. I got downstairs, and they told me that the captains had been swapped.”

There was further English involvement at the draft, with Eoin Morgan appearing as a broadcast pundit. Morgan described the occasion as “an exciting day, the start of a new journey that I’m looking forward to.” Whether that journey begins with the players who were signed on Tuesday remains a matter for the ICC.

                                               

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