The Bangladesh Cricket Board refused to give up hopes of Pakistani players playing in the forthcoming Bangladesh Premier League despite time running out fast for their arrival.
‘Since we did not get anything official from Pakistan Cricket Board, we can assume they will arrive,’ BPL governing council chairman Afzalur Rahman Sinha told reporters at a press conference on Monday.
‘We have our necessary preparation for the tournament and it will start as per as schedule. If Pakistanis don’t come teams can take players, who were unsold in the auction,’ added the BPL chairman.
He was speaking at the press conference after an emergency meeting of the BCB, which discussed the possibility of Bangladesh’s Pakistan tour in March-April.
It was widely reported that Pakistan wanted a written word from the BCB about the tour before issuing No Objection Certificates (NOC) for their players to play in the BPL.
Jalal Yunus, the spokesman of the BCB, said they have discussed the issue in details and approved the decision of sending security delegates to asses the arrangements.
‘Our security delegates will visit Pakistan very soon. We will write to home ministry tomorrow (today) to form a delegation for the visit. We will also inform our decision to Pakistan officially,’ said Yunus.
The BCB officials are confident Pakistan will be convinced about their sincerity in making the tour and will release NOC to their players for the BPL.
BPL chairman Sinha confirmed that as of Monday they did not receive any NOC from Pakistan, despite the tournament being only three days away.
The standard practice is that all players must obtain NOC from their home Board before playing abroad and submit it to the Board which is the host of a certain competition.
The International Cricket Council asked the countries to strictly follow the rule after the renegade Indian Cricket League, where many players participated defying their own Board and were subsequently banned.
BPL officials are hopeful Pakistan will not take this hard-line if any players decide to come.
‘We are a Board and they are also a Board. So we are hopeful they release the players for our tournament,’ said BPL chairman Sinha.
Despite Pakistan did not take any clear position regarding the BPL, Sinha said the symptoms are very positive.  
‘Even today we have issued a letter for the on arrival visas of Khulna’s four foreign players and two of them are Pakistanis. So we are really hopeful,’ he said.
The BPL officials are optimistic that players from other countries will arrive timely despite payment dispute marred the previous edition of the competition.
England’s Alex Hales, who was sold to Duronto Rajshahi in the auction, pulled out from the tournament, but Anjan Ganguly, an official of Game On, the event management firm that are organising the tournament, said  his decision has nothing  to do with payment concern. 
‘Hales pulled out for personal reasons, there is no other issue in it,’ said Ganguly.
There is, however, still payment concern for local players and some other stakeholders, who worked in the previous edition but are yet to receive the money.
BPL chairman said they set a new deadline of January 16 for the franchisees to complete the outstanding of previous season and pay 25 per cent for this season.
‘The BCB president [Nazmul Hasan] is very strict about this decision. If any franchisee fails to comply, it will be scrapped from the tournament,’ he said.