'It's very sad missing out on the IPL' - Yousuf

Mohammad Yousuf: "I left the ICL on the insistence of the chairman and I did that for the country. I ended up playing for neither" © AFP

Mohammad Yousuf, the Pakistan batsman, has once again expressed his disappointment at missing out on an opportunity to play in the Indian Premier League (IPL), while urging the Pakistan board to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.

Yousuf signed up for the Indian Cricket League (ICL) last year before he was urged to renege on that contract by the PCB, with the carrot of the IPL acting as one of the incentives.

But the ICL insisted that as Yousuf had signed a contract he should not be allowed to play in any other league including the IPL. The matter went to a court of arbitration in Mumbai, which [please link] passed an interim order earlier this month barring Yousuf from playing in the IPL.

On the eve of his departure to England to play for Lancashire, Yousuf reminded Nasim Ashraf, the PCB chairman, of his promise to resolve the matter.

"It's very sad missing out on the IPL. I left the ICL on the insistence of the chairman and I did that for the country," Yousuf told BBC Urdu. "I ended up playing for neither. This matter should be resolved because the chairman promised me he would do it and it should be done quickly."

How quickly it can happen is open to question. The PCB wants to file an appeal against the interim order in the Mumbai High Court but has yet to do so. Other legal matters, according to the board's lawyer, such as the Shoaib Akhtar defamation lawsuit and the Salim Malik appeal, have prevented an appeal from being filed so far.

"We have appointed a senior Mumbai advocate, Iqbal Chagla, to represent us in this case in the Mumbai High Court," Taffazul Rizvi, PCB's lawyer, told Cricinfo. "In the next few days we will discuss the issue amongst ourselves and then direct our representative in Mumbai to file the appeal."

Yousuf signed a short-term contract with Lancashire to keep himself busy in an otherwise empty international calendar. He has played one championship game for them so far, before returning to Pakistan briefly, and will now resume his contract, which runs till the beginning of June.

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