The PCB wants USD 10,000 for each NOC, and 16 Pakistan players may miss the Abu Dhabi T10 that starts on Saturday
Shadab Khan, Naseem Shah and Fakhar Zaman are among the players waiting on clearance, and franchises are already lining up replacements.
Nov 5, 2026
Sixteen Pakistan cricketers were picked in the Abu Dhabi T10 draft on 30 September. With the tournament starting on Saturday, most of them may not get to play, because the Pakistan Cricket Board wants USD 10,000 for each No-Objection Certificate (NOC) it issues.
ESPNcricinfo reported that the league applied for the NOCs soon after the draft, but the PCB only raised the fee at the start of this week. Pakistan’s players need the board’s NOC to play in overseas leagues. The league has reportedly told the players they can still play if they cover the fee themselves, and some were planning to pay it out of their own salaries if team owners refused. Franchises are already looking at replacements.
The PCB has not responded to questions about it.
Who is affected
Five of the six teams picked Pakistan players. UAE Bulls have the most, with six: Shadab Khan, Mohammad Amir, Khawaja Nafay, Khushdil Shah, Azam Khan and Mohammad Wasim Jr. United Tigers have five, including Fakhar Zaman, Iftikhar Ahmed and Faheem Ashraf. Naseem Shah is with Royal Desert Champions, Hasan Nawaz is among three at Emirates Eagles, and Salman Irshad is with Arabian Aces.
The tournament runs from 7 to 20 November at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi. At USD 10,000 a player, the bill for all 16 would come to USD 160,000.
The second time in a month
The PCB tried something similar last month. It asked for USD 25,000 per player before it would clear Pakistan cricketers for the Nepal Premier League. Hussain Talat and Jahandad Khan still played, but most of the others came home without appearing.
The board has charged NOC fees on and off for several years. According to ESPNcricinfo, the idea first came up when the ILT20 launched, and the reasoning has been about reciprocity: the PCB sees little value in releasing its players to leagues in countries whose own players are not in demand at the PSL. One PCB official told ESPNcricinfo that thinking still holds.
It sits oddly next to the board’s own new policy. According to ESPNcricinfo, the new central contracts remove the cap on how many T20 and T10 leagues the T20 specialists can play, as long as they are available for Pakistan. Those contracts have not been announced yet, so it is not clear which players fall into which group.
Fewer doors, and one more shut
The timing is awkward for the players. Pakistan cricketers are already frozen out of the IPL, and teams under IPL ownership in other leagues rarely pick them. No Pakistan player has appeared in the SA20, where every team is owned by an IPL franchise.
That leaves fewer leagues where they get picked at all, and the Abu Dhabi T10 was one that wanted 16 of them. Some players have pointed to the board’s erratic handling of NOCs as another reason their options keep shrinking.
If nobody pays before Saturday, five of the six teams will start the tournament with replacements. Shadab, Naseem and Fakhar could be watching from home, over a fee the board only asked for this week.