Mumbai, Wednesday 29 April 2009: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) lifted its ban from Indian Cricket League (ICL) players allowing them to play in international and domestic tournaments.

According to the sources, BCCI has lifted the ban with a condition that ICL players will have to play domestic Cricket for a year before they are eligible to join the international squad.

The players and support staff of ICL can be attached to BCCI till May 31.

It is worth mentioning here that BCCI sacked Kapil Dev as Chairman of the National Cricket Academy (NCA) for aligning with the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) and also barred the defecting players from playing in international and domestic tournaments.

The rift between BCCI and the Indian Cricket League began right from the day ICL was started. ICL was the tournament which first brought Twenty20 format to India. And BCCI, which was opposing Twenty20 format, floated the Indian Premier League after the success of Indian team in the Inaugural Twenty20 world cup.

Indian Cricket League has been ignored by the BCCI for no reason. The players who had aligned themselves with the rebel league have found themselves banned from their respective state cricket associations.

BCCI has also gone on and made the foreign boards ban the players who had appeared for the rebel league. This has weakened many teams like Pakistan and New Zealand. ICC insisted to resolve the issue at the earliest.