Many players from the Pakistan Cricket Team who were not offered renewed central contracts (or decided to reject new contracts) decided to join the rival Indian Cricket League(ICL). Two such players—Naved-ul-Hasan and Mushtaq Ahmed also held contracts with English Counties. The PCB decided to issue No Objection Certificates for these players to play with their county teams on the basis that since they were no longer contracted to the PCB, there was no point in not granting them their NOCs. The latter did not sit well with the BCCI, as it went against the hard line stance they had taken on players who joined the ICL.