CLT20 set to have team from Pakistan

The Champions League Twenty20 is set to have a team from Pakistan for the first time. The BCCI has said it will recommend to the tournament's governing council that it had no objection to a team from Pakistan participating.

"The Working Committee has decided to invite a team from Pakistan to play in Champions League Twenty20 to be held in October," N Srinivasan, the BCCI president, said after the board's working committee meeting in Chennai. "CLT20 is owned by BCCI, Cricket Australia, and Cricket South Africa. So we will recommend to the Governing Council that the BCCI has no objection and is prepared to invite a Pakistan team in the Champions League.

"CLT20 will be played in India. As far as inviting a Pakistani team is concerned, it will be done by the Governing Council. The BCCI will make the recommendation to the Governing Council which will decide on the matter."

The PCB had been pushing for the inclusion of sides from Pakistan, the only major Test-playing nation to not have had teams in either the qualifiers or the main round of the tournament since its inception in 2009.

The Champions League is played between domestic T20 winners from various countries. Sialkot Stallions are the current Pakistan domestic T20 champions. The Sialkot Regional Cricket Association had requested the PCB last month to make efforts to enable the participation of Sialkot in the Champions League. The PCB, in turn, had said that Sialkot's participation was dependent on the restoration of bilateral ties between India and Pakistan.

Sialkot were invited to the inaugural edition of the tournament towards the end of 2008, but it was postponed after the terror attacks in Mumbai in November that year. The fall-out of those attacks strained the political relationship between India and Pakistan, and consequently, the cricketing one between the BCCI and the PCB.

Pakistan players are currently excluded from the Indian Premier League as well. Rajiv Shukla, the IPL chairman, had said last month that their participation was also dependent on the resumption of India-Pakistan cricket ties.