Iftikhar Ahmed and Hunain Shah Set to Leave Janakpur Bolts as PCB Silence Continues

Janakpur Bolts will send Pakistani players Iftikhar Ahmed and Hunain Shah home if the Pakistan Cricket Board gives no clear reply on their clearance, franchise chief executive Niroj Khatiwada has said, after the pair spent the club's Nepal Premier League opener as substitutes.

Janakpur Bolts' deadline for the PCB reply

Two Pakistani players of Janakpur Bolts, Iftikhar Ahmed and Hunain Shah, will return home, OnlineKhabar reported on October 28, because the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has shown no sign that it will give them permission to play in the Nepal Premier League. The franchise has contacted the PCB by email and has received no official reply, according to chief executive officer Niroj Khatiwada.

"We have emailed the PCB. If there is no clear reply by Wednesday, the players will return. It would not be good to keep them here without playing," Khatiwada said. Janakpur will wait for the PCB's final answer before sending the pair back, the report said, and the franchise sees little point in keeping two players in the squad if they cannot take the field.

The wait has already cost Janakpur a match. The Bolts opened their Season 3 campaign against Karnali Yaks on Tuesday without either Pakistani in the playing eleven, and the club now faces its second fixture, against Kathmandu Gorkhas on Thursday, with the same question hanging over the pair. The full schedule runs until the final on November 21, so every missed game matters in a short league season.

Substitutes at the ground for the Karnali opener

The Kathmandu Post confirmed the pair's strange opening day: Iftikhar and Hunain were present at the ground for the match against Karnali but had to watch as substitutes. Karnali won that game by 19 runs, defending 132 against a Janakpur side chasing 133 at the TU International Cricket Ground in Kirtipur.

Janakpur were not alone in the disruption. The Post reported that six of the seven Pakistani players signed for NPL Season 3 did not play on Tuesday, because the PCB reportedly put their no-objection certificates (NOCs) on hold. Every foreign player in a franchise league needs an NOC from his home board, and the PCB had reportedly sought an additional payment before granting permission to play abroad.

Chitwan Rhinos replaced their three Pakistani signings on the day of their match, while Karnali's Hussain Talat was the one Pakistani who did play on Tuesday, as covered in our report on Talat's surprise start for Karnali. The contrast underlines how uneven the clearance row has been: one franchise got its player on the field, while Janakpur's pair could only sit and watch.

The reported fee Janakpur says it has not been told about

Reports have put the PCB's demand at USD 25,000 per player for the NOCs, but Khatiwada was careful to distance the franchise from that figure. He told OnlineKhabar that the board has had no direct talks with Janakpur about such a demand, and that the franchise has no information that the PCB officially made it.

"The PCB has not spoken to the franchise at all. This is between the players and their board. We also have no right to deal directly with them on whether to give permission," Khatiwada said. That distinction matters for how the story is read: the fee has been reported in the media, but Janakpur itself is not claiming the PCB demanded it of the club, and the franchise's complaint is about silence rather than a price.

The same uncertainty was already hanging over the tournament before it began, as covered in our earlier update on the PCB clearance row, when the Cricket Association of Nepal said the PCB had not responded at all on the NOC issue. For Janakpur, the silence has now turned into a deadline: a clear answer, or the players go home.

Replacements, team balance and the Kathmandu fixture

Khatiwada said the players' absence has hurt Janakpur's team balance and strategy. The problem became clear only two days before the tournament began, which made it hard even to find replacements, and the plan built around the two Pakistanis could not be carried out. "The plan we used to build the team has been affected. We had to bench two quality players. The plan made for them could not be carried out," he said.

Janakpur has had to arrange replacements, and Khatiwada said the team had also signed Kusal Perera as a backup, though the last-minute uncertainty over availability hurt the club's preparation. He added that such challenges can arise in franchise cricket, but uncertainty over players in the middle of a tournament makes things hard for team management, and the club is trying to field the strongest possible side so that Nepali supporters are not disappointed.

That test comes quickly. Janakpur face Kathmandu Gorkhas on Thursday in their second match of the season, and the result will shape the early points table for the defending champions' rivals. Whether Iftikhar and Hunain are still in Kathmandu by then depends on an email reply that, so far, has not arrived.