IPL wants players to furnish two-year NOCs

Mumbai:

As a measure of its commitment to safeguard international cricket, the Indian Premier League has decided that all IPL players, including retired cricketers, should provide a 'No Objection Certificate' from their home Board for a two-year period.

The IPL will also not allow a cricketer to play in the cash-rich Twenty20 League if he skips participating in an approved Future Tours Programme event and instead opts to play for a franchise in the League.

A communication to this effect from IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi has been sent to all the cricket boards last night, a media release said on Friday.

The world's premier Twenty20 League has also set a deadline of August 25 for all its franchises, eight in number currently, to disclose all the contracts they have signed with all the players.

"The IPL would update the player registry and publish a finalised list of registered players with the league on August 27", the release said.

The IPL has also advised its franchises not to use agents for hiring new players and instead deal directly with the cricketers in the wake of problems faced by the cricket boards because of some agents misguiding players and the franchises with detrimental effects on global cricket, the release said.

The IPL has also announced it would not recognise any player contracts which were not as per the prescribed guidelines of the IPL.

The IPL has taken this stance based on complaints received from multiple quarters about individual franchisees tweaking the terms of conditions of signing-up young and new players as per their convenience and were not part of the prescribed contract templates provided by the league, it clarified.

The league, in a written communication to its franchisees, has also clearly outlined that only player contracts approved and circulated by the IPL, will be recognized and other contracts would be considered invalid.

Modi has also asked players to direct their individual queries to him directly, if the cricketers need to seek clarifications on any issues, the release added.