Pakistan players to avoid League in future

Hurt Pakistani cricketers have decided to avoid the IPL till Indo-Pak ties normalise even as the auction snub continued to evoke angry reactions from the sports fraternity.

Hurt Pakistani cricketers have decided to avoid the IPL till Indo-Pak ties normalise even as the auction snub continued to evoke angry reactions from the sports fraternity.

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The players, who did not find a buyer in the third IPL auction on Tuesday, held a meeting in Brisbane, where the team will play an ODI series against Australia. They decided it was best to ignore the event at least for the time being.

“The players unanimously decided to avoid playing in the IPL in future and until at least relations between the two countries normalised,” one source said.

“The players were pretty upset that no franchise was willing to bid for them and they all felt this was a planned move by the IPL and franchises to humiliate them publicly,” the source said.

The outrage over Pakistani players being ignored at the auction threatened to snowball into a major diplomatic row and there were reports that angry cricket fans burnt effigees of Indian Premier League Commissioner Lalit Modi in Lahore.

Some former players made a scathing attack against the IPL organisers and the franchisees for humiliating the Pakistani players.