Pakistan players unlikely to feature in Abu Dhabi T10 over PCB's NOC fee demand

As many as 16 Pakistani cricketers are unlikely to take part in the Abu Dhabi T10 2026, which is scheduled to run from November 7 to November 20, after the Pakistan Cricket Board demanded USD $10,000 per No-Objection Certificate from the league's management. The PCB communicated this fee demand to the Abu Dhabi T10 organisers at the start of the week ending November 5, 2026, just days before the tournament was due to begin.

According to Cricinfo, Abu Dhabi T10 management applied for NOCs for Pakistani players well in advance, with the player draft taking place on September 30, 2026. At that draft, five or six competing franchises picked 16 Pakistani cricketers. The late imposition of the fee has left the league scrambling, with franchises now exploring replacement players despite mediation efforts to resolve the standoff.

Some team owners considered paying the USD $10,000 fee out of their own pockets or deducting it from the players' salaries, but those proposals were ultimately refused, leaving the situation unresolved heading into the tournament's opening days.

Which Pakistani players were picked in the Abu Dhabi T10 draft?

The September 30 draft saw a large contingent of Pakistani talent distributed across the competing sides. Salman Irshad was picked by the Arabian Aces, while Akif Javed, Hasan Nawaz and Ali Raza were selected by the Emirates Eagles. Naseem Shah was drafted by the Royal Desert Champions.

The UAE Bulls secured Shadab Khan, Mohammad Amir, Khawaja Nafay, Khushdil Shah, Azam Khan and Mohammad Wasim Jnr. The United Tigers rounded out the Pakistani representation by picking Fakhar Zaman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Faheem Ashraf, Sufyan Moqeem and Abbas Afridi. All 16 of these players now face the prospect of missing the tournament entirely if the NOC dispute is not resolved before play begins.

What is the background to the PCB's NOC fee policy?

The PCB's practice of charging NOC fees for overseas leagues is not new. The policy first emerged as an issue around the time of the ILT20 launch. More recently, in October 2026, the board demanded USD $25,000 per player from the Nepal Premier League. Most Pakistani cricketers who had been picked for the NPL returned home without featuring after the PCB withheld their NOCs, though Jahandad Khan and Hussain Talat were among those who continued to play in the competition despite the board's position.

The PCB's rationale for the fee structure is partly linked to reciprocity: the board has noted that leagues such as those in the UAE and Nepal do not make a comparable number of their players available for the Pakistan Super League, making the arrangement less attractive from Pakistan's perspective.

Under the PCB's overhauled central contract system, players are categorised into tracks that determine how many overseas leagues they may participate in each year. Track A players, who are red-ball specialists, are not permitted to play in any overseas T20 or T10 league. Track AB players, covering dual-format specialists, are allowed to feature in one overseas league per year.

Track BC players, who are white-ball specialists, may participate in up to two overseas leagues annually. Track C players, designated as T20 specialists, had the cap on T20 appearances removed under the new contracts, and T10 tournaments fall within the scope of this framework.

Previously, the PCB's policy had allowed centrally contracted players to participate in the PSL plus two additional foreign leagues across the board, a simpler arrangement that the new track-based system has replaced.