The BCCI is refusing to allow its contracted players from repesenting English counties with ICL staff and Harsha Bhogle, in the Indian Express, wonders if the board's tough stance is world cricket’s new apartheid.

I can go so far as to understand one body not picking players who have played for another set-up. But not to take the field in the company of those that have played the ICL, in a third country, seems cruel and unfair. Even at the height of South Africa’s isolation, Bishan Bedi bowled to Barry Richards in county cricket, Sunil Gavaskar batted with Graeme Pollock in a world eleven and nobody raised a hue and cry over it.

Also read the paper's editorial on the BCCI's "unbridled intimidation" of the ICL .