The Bangladesh Cricket Board will ban rebel players from playing for the country for 10 years if they participate in any unofficial tournament.
The Board convened to make a decision after seven contracted players applied to the board for early retirement.
Former captain Habibul Bashar, batsmen Shahriar Nafees, Aftab Ahmed, and Nazim Uddin, all-rounder Farhad Reza, wicketkeeper Dhiman Ghosh and left-arm spinner Mosharraf Hossain requested early retirement this week without giving a reason.
Bashar and 12 other leading Bangladesh players will form a new team called the Dhaka Warriors in the unofficial Indian Cricket League (ICL) this year.
Bashar says he never thought that the BCB would impose such a harsh punishment which fits only for match fixers or drug abusers... he says they signed contracts with ICL to play cricket, not to indulge in any crime.
The Twenty20 league is not recognised by the national governing bodies in the International Cricket Council but Basher says their contracts bound the league to release them to represent their country.
