The player auction ahead of the fifth edition of the International League T20 is scheduled for Thursday, October 1, at the ICC Academy indoors facility. Six franchises have retained a few players and have also made some direct signings, but they will have to be mindful of a introduced this time around.

Each team must have a minimum of 18 and a maximum of 23 players in their squad, of which 11 must be from Full Member nations. However, of those 11, . ILT20 has also made it mandatory for the franchises to include a minimum of two players from Afghanistan in the playing XI.

Apart from this, each squad must have at least four UAE players, and at least one further player from ICC Associate nations (excluding the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia).

According to a Cricinfo report, ILT20 has introduced new rules after facing issues with player availability in the previous four editions of the tournament. ILT20 clashed directly with the SA20 and Big Bash League in the first three of these. The previous edition began earlier to avoid the clash with SA20, but ran parallel to the BBL for a brief period. The same will be the case this year too.

Restrictions imposed by several cricket boards on the number of T20 leagues their players can join have also driven these new regulations. For instance, the Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan cricket boards can restrict their players from participating in all available T20 leagues.

If more Full Member boards do not issue No-Objection Certificates in the future, ILT20 may risk losing out a major chunk of players. It is to be noted that the presence of Full Member players enhance the commercial rights of the league.

Hence, ILT20 has reached agreements with the Afghanistan Cricket Board and Cricket Ireland to allow their players. In return, they made it mandatory for the franchises to pick at least four players from Afghanistan and one from Ireland, capped or uncapped, at the upcoming auction.

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