Cricket South Africa, the governing body of cricket in the rainbow nation has denied No-Objection Certificates for its centrally contracted players to participate in the upcoming edition of the Pakistan Super League. Thus PSL 2022, which was expecting to sign Proteas players in the replacement draft would not be able to do that.
"It is true that contracted members of the proteas team had their NOCs for the Pakistan Super League refused due to the Proteas international schedule and domestic competitions which must always be prioritised," Graeme Smith, Director of cricket, CSA was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.
"With an away tour to New Zealand and a home tour against Bangladesh, our contracted players have to be available for their national team duties first and foremost. The same applies with regard to our domestic franchise tournaments which will be starting up soon,” he added.
However, the former Proteas captain, who himself knows how important it is for players to participate in foreign leagues not only to earn money but also to get to know the conditions better, said that CSA would have no issues granting NOCs during non-international ties of the team.
"If and when opportunities in other international T20 tournaments arise and the timings and fixtures do not clash with our own, CSA will happily approve NOCs, as we have always done in the past,” he said.
Non centrally contracted South African players such as Marchant de Lange, Imran Tahir and Rilee Rossouw would still be available to play in PSL 2022. The 2022 season of the league begins on January 27th, 2022 with Karachi Kings taking on defending champions Multan Sultans at the National Stadium in Karachi.