Ollie Pope withdraws from Afghanistan Premier League T20 draft

Ollie Pope has pulled out of the upcoming draft for the inaugural Afghanistan Premier League T20 (APL) after backlash over the potential involvement of England players.

Cricinfo revealed this month that the ECB planned to grant No-Objection Certificates (NOCs) for the APL despite its refusal to play bilateral fixtures against Afghanistan due to the Taliban government's treatment of women.

Richard Thompson, the board's chair, said last week that the ECB would need to "think very carefully" before granting NOCs for English players to feature in the APL, but suggested that restraint-of-trade laws in the UK were an obstacle.

Rob Key, the ECB's managing director of men's cricket, encouraged English players to "take the right moral stance" about playing in the APL on Monday morning and said that he would speak to Pope - who captained England as recently as last summer, and has just signed a new one-year central contract - about his decision to register for the draft.

But Cricinfo has learned that Pope has now withdrawn from the draft - which is due to be held on October 24 - and that he had made the decision to do so before Key spoke on Monday. At least two other English players in Will Smeed and David Willey have also pulled out.

Typically, players are registered for franchise leagues by agents acting on their behalf, so it is possible that the players were not aware they had been signed up for the APL draft until they saw the backlash, which has included criticism from the Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi.

Key told the BBC's Test Match Special podcast: "Legally, it's hard to stop players from going over and playing in these competitions. It becomes a moral judgement, and players have to be prepared to take right moral stance. Personally - and it's easy for me to say - I wouldn't go and play in it, but it's down, really, for the player to make that decision.

He added: "I don't agree with the way that women have been treated out in Afghanistan, and the way that things happen in that country is not something that I agree with, so it's not something that I would go and do."

Dawid Malan, who is among the England players still registered for the draft, defended his potential involvement by deferring to the ECB and the ICC. "As players we take our guidance from the ICC and the boards," he told the Test Match Special podcast.

Malan added: "I have a daughter, I want her to play sport, I want her to get into playing sport and enjoying it, so I fully understand that argument. But at the end of the day, I'm a cricketer. I need to be able to pay my rent and I need to be able to earn a living while I can, so as long as it's been approved by the boards, I am happy to go."

Cricinfo revealed last week that there remain doubts as to whether the APL will go ahead as planned in any case, with only three out of five franchises sold and one source describing the league's prospects as "touch and go". It is due to begin in the UAE on December 27.