The 31-year-old will feature in the qualifying rounds of the September 19 to October 9 event for Leicestershire, the English county side that won the domestic Twenty20 tournament. Razzaq will become only the second Pakistani to play in the Champions League after Yasir Arafat, who represented Sussex in the first year of the tournament in 2009.
“I’m very excited to be playing in India,” said Razzaq. “It’s a great chance and I will take a message of goodwill to the Indians.”
The Board of Control for Cricket in India, which runs the lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) as well as the Champions League, barred Pakistani players from featuring in both events after they played in the inaugural IPL in 2008. No Pakistani team has been invited to the latest edition of the Champions League, an event where the winners of Twenty20 competitions in top Test playing countries take part, but Razzaq hopes that will change.
“I hope the respective governments will negotiate to resume Indo-Pak cricket because without India and Pakistan playing each other, cricket is deprived of a high-profile, popular cricket series.”
India stalled sporting and other ties with Pakistan in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which New Delhi blamed on militants based across the border. But Razzaq said cricket was ‘the binding force’ between India and Pakistan, two countries where the game is massively popular.
“The doors should always be open for sportsmen or else you ought to change the name of cricket. Cricket is the binding force between these two countries, as we have seen in the past. When we played in the Indian Cricket League, the whole charm of the league was to see Pakistan players playing in India. I hope that after I go and play the Champions League, India also open doors of IPL for Pakistan players.
“I have faced no problems playing in India. Even in
the worst of times people of India welcome Pakistani players with open hearts and I hope I am soon part of a Pakistani team playing against India.”
Published in The Express Tribune, September 8th, 2011.
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