BCB offers amnesty to ICL cricketers

The Bangladesh Cricket Board on Saturday offered an amnesty to the Indian Cricket League players asking them to terminate their contracts with the unofficial Twenty20 competition by June 15 if they want their bans to be withdrawn.
‘The players have to terminate their contracts by June 15 to apply for withdrawal of their bans,’ Jalal Yunus, the chairman of the media committee, said at a press conference following a meeting of the Board of Directors.
Yunus, however, said that the players will not be considered for the national team until December 31 even if they sever the tie with the ICL. The bans imposed by the Board on September 17 will remain effective for the ICL contracted cricketers who fail to terminate their contracts by June 15, he said.
The BCB had banned 14 cricketers for 10 years last September for joining the renegade league.
The BCB’s move came less than two weeks after India offered a similar amnesty to their players giving them a deadline of May 31 to sever ties with the rebel body for a return to domestic cricket.
India announced a one-year cooling period for the ICL players to be considered for the national team.
‘Whatever we have decided, it is within the guideline of the International Cricket Council. The other countries are also following the same guideline,’ said Yunus.
The ICC last month rejected an application from the ICL seeking approval for their Twenty20 competition.
Habibul Bashar, who led Dhaka Warriors in the ICL, welcomed the decision and said it at least gave them an option.
‘We had no choice but to go with the ICL until now. But the decision gave us at least an option. We will now sit together and talk to the ICL authority. Still we have more than a month to make a decision,’ Bashar told New Age by telephone.
‘Of course it will be an individual decision, but still we will talk to each other since we are playing there as a team,’ added Bashar.
Some Bangladeshi ICL players had earlier feared legal complications for contract termination, but BCB said it cannot help the players in that case.
‘It is their problem and they have to solve it,’ said Jalal Yunus.

Courtesy of NewAge