Chawla barred by BCCI
Mumbai: For young leg-spinner Piyush Chawla it would have been in some ways the perfect way to learn and get better at his art. Afterall, he would have been filling in the big shoes of the legendary Shane Keith Warne for English county side Hampshire, but Chawla will have to wait a little longer.
This is because he has not been given permission by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to play for the Southampton-based county due to the presence of three Indian Cricket League (ICL) players in the side. It is learnt that the leggie was first given permission to turn out for Hampshire, but it was later withdrawn last week because the Board found out that the team sported ICL players.
The Board is keen that its contracted players, like Chawla, are not seen in the same mix as the 'rebels'. "Piyush Chawla will not be going (to Hampshire) because there are a few ICL players in that team,'' BCCI secretary Niranajn Shah confirmed to cricketnirvana.com.
The three ICL players in the Hampshire team include South Africa-born wicket-keeper Nic Pothas, former South Africa paceman Nantie Hayward and former Australian all-rounder Ian Harvey. New Zealand's thunderbolt paceman Shane Bond too was part of the Hampshire set up, but he has just wound up his contract and Chawla would have replaced him in the team.
Shane Warne played for and captained Hampshire for the last three seasons and currently it is being led by England's ODI and T20 star Dimitri Mascarenhas. Incidentally Mascarenhas was also the only English player to play in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for Rajasthan Royals.
Chawla has been dropped from the Test team currently touring Sri Lanka, but is a regular in the ODI team which will be in action from August 18.
Interestingly, the BCCI allowed stylish batsman VVS Laxman to sign up with another English county side Nottinghamshire, which too has in its ranks three ICL players in New Zealand all-rounders Andre Adams and Chris Cairns, and England discard wicket-keeper-batsman Chris Read.
When this was pointed out Shah said, "Even Laxman won't be allowed to go to Nottinghamshire.'' Laxman was supposed to join Notts at the end of the Test series in Sri Lanka in mid-August.
There is already one BCCI contracted player Murali Kartik playing in the English county circuit for the Lord's-based Middlesex. But thankfully for Kartik, his county is just one of the three county sides which do not have ICL players.
Incidentally this dispute over the presence of ICL players in English county sides is not new. It is the same dispute for which BCCI and England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) are not able to arrive at a compromise over organising the Champions League Twenty20 tournament.
While the BCCI have always maintained they do not approve the presence of ICL players in the county circuit, ECB say they are bound by British laws and cannot prevent the 25 ICL players from appearing in the county circuit.
