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The Pakistan foreign affairs office barred the country's cricketers from travelling to India for IPL because of "security concerns".
The BCCI and IPL officials, Niranjan Shah and Lalit Modi said the absence of Pakistani players would not make a difference to the league's following. But the franchises felt otherwise.
Joy Bhatacharya -- the team leader of the Kolkata Knight Riders team for whom Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul, Salman Butt, Mohammad Hafeez played last season -- said the team would miss the Pakistani flavour this season.
"We are not just a team we were like a family and Shoaib and Umar are not only good cricketers but popular among their teammates as well at the Knight Riders. We will surely miss them a lot," he told Geo TV.
Similar feelings were expressed by Amrit Mathur, the CEO of Delhi Daredevils. "We are going to miss the Pakistani players because they were key members of our team," Mathur told the channel.
"Shoaib Malik in fact was a very important member of the side and very cooperative we will miss his presence. One would have liked Pakistani presence in the IPL," he said.
Fraser Castellino, the CEO of Rajasthan Royals, said he was disappointed but nothing could be done if the government didn't allow Pakistani players to play in the IPL.
"Definitely we will miss someone like Sohail Tanvir who performed so well for us or even Kamran Akmal. It means we have to reorganize our team and plans for the new season," Fraser said.
Another team official said Pakistani players had added value to the IPL but the league would continue to prosper without them.
Niranjan Shah said there was nothing the Indian board or IPL could do since the players were not allowed to travel to India by their foreign ministry.
But most of the former Pakistani players supported the government decision pointing out that in current scenario it was better to avoid going to India.
"It would be wise if our players are patient and wait for relations to improve between the two countries," former Test captain Rashid Latif said.
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I believe that the boom of cricket in India is because of India-Pakistan rivalry in cricket.If there are no matches between India
certainly, Pakistan did the right by not allowing its players to travel India for IPL. why to be part of an event which is being played in a country which is not secure at all, specially for Muslims.
why are we crying for players of a criminal country. only when the people of pakistan realise that its going to cost us if pak govt continues it stupid ways will pak try to improve itself. ous IPL ceo's are behaving very irresponsibly by saying they miss pak players. why are these guys trying to show only money matters
I'm happy to see no paki players.They don't deserve to benefit from IPL bonanza because they are Pakistanis and Pakistan is a undeserving nation for it's anti-India and Anti-world activities.
if not terrorist supporters, these pakis are criminals. IPL is better off without them, good riddance to bad rubbish
"terrorist supporting Pakistanis"Unless you have invented some sort of mind reader I don't believe it's fair for you to judge all Pakistanis. Most of us have suffered losses to these terrorists, and lost loved ones. Where this hatred and preconceived notions have stemmed from in you people I don't know, but as I traverse this website I see nothing but more and more hatred. I think India keeps proclaiming that Pakistan does nothing but preach hatred for India inside their country but in that frenzy of accusing, it turns out that the general public in India hates Pakistan (clearly) more than the general public in Pakistan. Go read our media websites, we are preaching peace there. I see what you folks are preaching here.
The individual team managements naturally have to make polite noises like this. I think the general Indian public is only too happy not to have to sit and cheer terrorist supporting Pakistanis. Good riddance.