IPL 2020 | BCB deny Mustafizur Rahman NOC to play in IPL

It is believed that both Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders were keen on signing Mustafizur Rahman as a replacement player and approached the left-arm pacer regarding the same. Mumbai lost the services of Lasith Malinga, after the Lankan pulled out of the tournament due to personal reasons, while Kolkata also subsequently lost left-arm seamer Harry Gurney due to injury.

However, the BCB are said to have denied the franchise’s requests by refusing to give a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to Mustafizur. In what is a startling revelation, in a chat with Cricbuzz, BCB cricket operation chairman Akram Khan revealed that the board denied NOC to Mustafizur to render him available for Bangladesh’s three-Test series versus Sri Lanka, starting October 24.

"Yes, he had an offer from the IPL but we did not give him NOC as we have the Sri Lanka tour coming up,'' BCB cricket operation chairman Akram Khan told Cricbuzz.

Mustafizur’s unavailability meant that Mumbai turned their attention to Australian James Pattinson and signed up the right-armer as the replacement for Malinga. Kolkata, however, were not so lucky. In fact, they are yet to find a replacement for Gurney.

Mustafizur had enrolled himself in the auction in December for a base price of 1 crore, but went unsold after attracting no bids. The lack of interest from teams in the auction could very well be attributed to his IPL form as after a stellar 2016, where he picked 17 wickets, the left-armer combinedly picked just 7 wickets from 8 games across the 2017 and 2018 seasons.

This is, in fact, the second consecutive IPL season in which the BCB have denied NOC to the pacer as the board barred Mustafizur from participating in IPL 2019 to keep him wrapped in cotton wool prior to the 2019 World Cup.