Bank guarantee offered to Indian players

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is willing to offer contracts to all Indian players, if they are allowed by  the BCCI to participate in the Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL). This was revealed by the top  SLC board official.     Apparently, at present, the contracts have been issued by the Singapore-based  company, Somerset Entertainment Ventures Pvt Ltd, the holder of the marketing rights.     "If the BCCI has reservation over doubts about the company, they are willing to give Bank  Guarantee to SLC for the payments to the Indian players and that is how the board officials will  argue to the Indian cricket board officials on Thursday (owing to visa delay, the chairman will  be arriving late and the meeting is rescheduled)", the source further added.. Only the Indian cricket board has  objection in having their players'  participation in the first edition  of the Sri Lanka Premier League ( SLPL) which is scheduled to be played  from July 19 to August 4. Following support from Australia and  South African boards, the hosts  have received thumbs up from New  Zealand as well.    "We have no problem with our players  participating in the Sri Lankan Premier  League; in fact we would encourage players  to do so outside of their international  commitments. We would hope the Sri  Lankan Cricket Board and their players  would support our domestic competitions  in the same way if they were asked to  participate in the HRV Cup", Hearth Mills,  the New Zealand Cricket Players' Association chief, said exclusively.    "It is our strong position that it would be viewed as a Restraint of Trade to stop players from working  for another organization if they have no obligations to their national board at that time. If New Zealand  Cricket did not automatically give an NOC to any player we would challenge that legally and it is our  clear advice that so long as a player is not missing obligations to the national board failure to give an  NOC would be a Restraint of Trade", he further added.    "With regard to the BCCI position on their players participating in the Sri Lankan event, we understand  that the Sri Lankan Board is working with an external company to deliver their event which is common  practice in the sports world. Much like the BCCI use IMG to help deliver the IPL. It seems semantics  who the players are actually contracted to as the event is controlled by the Sri Lankan Board  through the sanctioning process of the ICC. In any event if that was a material issue one would imagine it  could be easily solved with a bit of good will".    "If it was outsiders hosting and not the Sri Lankan Board then it can't be approved cricket under ICC rule  so that position of the BCCI doesn't make sense". The Sri Lankan Board must be involved otherwise it  wouldn't have been approved by ICC", Mills further added.       Several foreign players including Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard (West Indies), Shahid Afridi (Pakistan),  Daniel Vettori (New Zealand), Kevin O'Brien (Ireland) and Herschelle Gibbs (South Africa) have  already been signed for this tournament.