Ace Bangladesh cricketers — Shakib Al Hasan and Mustafizur Rahman will not be handed a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to feature in the remaining games of Indian Premier League’s (IPL) 2021 season, the country’s cricket board Chief Nazmul Hassan has said.
The IPL’s 14th edition, which was suspended on May 4 after multiple cases of COVID-19 inside its bio-bubble, will now resume in the third week of September in the UAE and will likley end in October’s second week.
“It is almost impossible to provide NOC (for IPL) considering our international commitments. I don’t see any chance of giving it (NOC) to them. We have the (T20) World Cup coming up and now every match is important,” Nazmul was quoted as saying by “Ekattor TV”, a local Bengali news channel.
Significantly, Bangladesh have three white ball series against Australia, New Zealand and England during the same window in which the remainder of IPL 2021 will be held.
Earlier, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) had also said that it won’t allow its players to take part in the tournament while Cricket Australia (CA) has said that the discussions on this regard will be taken later.
Significantly, all-rounder Shakib and left-arm pacer Mustafizur feature for the Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals respectively.