12 April,2009 05:23 PM IST | | Agencies
Former pace great Waqar Younis has questioned the national commitment of those Pakistan players who are competing in the unauthorized Indian Cricket League.
The future of ICL players will come up for discussion when the International Cricket Council's (ICC) executive board meets in Dubai on April 17-18. Currently all ICL players are ineligible for their national teams, as the ICL Twenty20 competition runs in opposition to the officially recognized Indian Premier League.
Those Pakistan players in the ICL have been critical of the international ban, but Waqar said they should have put their country ahead of the ICL.
"I am a strong believer that a cricketer should be permitted to play anywhere, but in this (ICL) case I think somewhere there is a doubt," Younis told reporters in the eastern city of Lahore. "It means country was not dear to you before (joining the ICL)."
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Ex-Pakistan skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq leads the Lahore Badshahs team in the ICL, which is made up of Pakistani players and won the even last year.
Batsmen Imran Nazir, Imran Farhat, Mohammad Yousuf, all-rounders Rana Naved and Abdul Razzaq and pacemen Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammad Sami are among the 19 Pakistani players in the ICL.
Last Tuesday, the Pakistan Cricket Board pulled Nazir, Naved and Razzaq out of an enlarged national squad for the World Twenty20, just a day after having included them - illustrating the confusion of the status of ICL players.
Younis retired after the 2003 World Cup with an impressive record of 373 wickets in 87 test matches and 416 scalps from 262 one-day internationals.
