The international T20 cricket league has been cancelled after playing only four matches.
The Pakistani cricketers were almost stranded in Kampala over a pay dispute with the Afro T20 Cricket League organisers, reports said, as at one point their return plane tickets were cancelled.
They are now due to return to Pakistan tonight.
Cricketer Saeed Ajmal said that the owner disappeared just after four matches had been played, and the league had to be stopped as a result.
Other sources said that players were promised they would be paid half of their fees before the start of the event, but that promise was not fulfilled.
“The organiser wasn’t paying us and we insisted for our payments as per the contractural agreement,” Ajmal told ESPNcricinfo. “But he deserted us with a promise that he is going to Dubai to arrange payments and will return but he hasn’t and we decided to return in protest. Our return tickets were blocked and we had informed Uganda Cricket Association and with some pressure we managed to rebook our return flight for December 21. But we are perfectly fine in Uganda, we are in touch with the Pakistan consulate as well and things are under control.”
Martin Ondeko, an administrative officer of the Association (UCA) confirmed on Thursday that after waiting for several days for the respective boards to clear their players, they decided to call off the international event.
” It is unfortunate that we shall miss this chance to host such an event where our players would have got exposed with top international players. But we need to observe the International Cricket Council (ICC) rules,” he added.
Pakistan with 21 players are led by Ajmal, while West Indies has two players; Pedro Tyrone Collins and William Keith Donald Perkins and the two from the USA Orlando Baker and Camilus Christopher Alexander. There were also three players from India and the same number from South Africa. Over UGX250 million was up for grabs for the best three teams.
T20 is a shorter version of cricket, lasting for about 80 minutes per innings.
