NEW DELHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board has granted permission to 12 centrally contracted players to participate in three different franchise leagues around the world during December and January, in the buildup to the global event in India and Sri Lanka. The only exception is T20 captain Salman Ali Agha, who will not feature in any league during this period.

Salman's exclusion comes as no shock, as he remains an unpopular pick among global T20 franchises, with doubts continuing to swirl around his effectiveness in the shortest format at the international level.

This season, Pakistani cricketers are slated to feature in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), the Emirates ILT20, and Australia's Big Bash League (BBL), all of which run concurrently during the December–January window. The South African T20 League will also take place from December 25 to January 26.

However, no Pakistani player will take part in the South African competition, as its teams are either fully or majority-owned by IPL franchises or Indian companies, effectively ruling out their participation.

Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Rizwan will make their debut appearance in the Big Bash alongside Shadab Khan and Haris Rauf while in the BPL franchises have picked around 11 Pakistani players including Abrar Ahmed, Usman Khan, Shahabzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Mohammad Nawaz, Faheem Ashraf (all Pakistan team members), Sufiyan Muqeem, Mohammad Aamir, Jahandad Khan and Khawaja Nafay.

Fakhar Zaman, Naseem Shah and Usman Tariq have signed on to play for the Desert Vipers in the ILT20 League.

The interesting part is that most of the players might have to cut short their league commitments in January as the PCB is close to finalizing a three match T20 series in Sri Lanka followed by a three matches at home against Australia from January 30.

The Big Bash teams only signed on the Pakistani players after getting assurances from the PCB they would be available for entire Big Bash which ends on January 25 after starting on December 14 while the BPL is scheduled from December 26.

The ILT20 runs from December 2 to January 4.

(With PTI Inputs)