The International Cricket Council (ICC) has approved a cap of four overseas players, active or retired, and seven local players which can include Associate players for all the new T20 leagues.
The new regulation was approved after votes by the cricket’s chief executives.
The new ruling will not initially affect the existing tournaments like the US’s Major League Cricket (MLC), UAE-based International League T20 (ILT20) and Canada’s Global T20 (GLT20), all of which, at the moment, allow more than four overseas players, primarily to promote the league.
These leagues will have to comply with those limits within a reasonable time frame. The leagues will also have to pay a 10% release fee — which is considered a solitary fee — to the home board of each player it hires every season.
At the very moment, the ILT20 and MLC allow nine and six overseas players in their playing XIs respectively while the GLT20 allows five overseas players from Full Member countries in the playing XI alongside a minimum of three locals with the remaining slots filled by a combination of players from Associates and Americas.
However, how much time these leagues will be given to comply with the agreed cap of the new regulation is likely to be decided on a case-to-case basis, depending on the commercial agreements each league has in place as well as agreements with franchises on the composition of a starting XI.
At first, the original working group plan for a minimum of four local players in all leagues and a cap on the overseas players at four, was actually voted down 8-6, and thus was ratified by the ICC's chief executives committee (CEC).
It has to be mentioned that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) initially voted against the hard cap along with the New Zealand Cricket (NZC), Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) and Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC). On the other hand, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), Cricket West Indies (CWI), Cricket Australia (CA), Cricket Ireland (CI) and the England Cricket Board (ECB) voted in favour of the regulation.