KEY POINTS:
Hamish Marshall could be used as the poster child for the futility of the England Cricket Board trying to stop foreign players with Indian Cricket League (ICL) links playing county cricket.
Marshall, who turned down a New Zealand Cricket contract last year to sign a four-year deal with Gloucestershire, has been asked to provide a "No-Objection Certificate" from his national board.
English counties have been told by the ECB that they cannot sign foreign players who are members of the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL).
Even Justin Vaughan, who wants to see the ICL crushed as much as the next man, is perplexed by this turn of events and can see difficulty for the ECB in trying to apply them.
Vaughan is not even sure how Marshall would go about seeking the certificate given NZC no longer has any jurisdiction over the player.
"The bizarre thing is I think he probably has to go to the Irish Cricket Board. He's playing for Ireland on an Irish passport and I don't see how New Zealand Cricket can sign him off because he's even less to do with us than someone like Shane Bond, who we also have no contractual relationship with.
"There are a few test cases here but I just cannot see how Marshall, who is for intents and purposes is an EU national, can be prevented from playing in the English county competition."
Vaughan said the other key point to come out of the ECB release last week was just how much control national boards had over the movements of their players.
"How much can a cricket board set the rules really, in terms of what players can play," Vaughan said. "Could New Zealand Cricket, for example, say that for any foreign player that comes in, we only want ones that are contracted to their home boards?"
"The point in England is it almost looks as if some of these rules are being made as we go. Marshall, for example, is on a four-year contract. To be able to change the rules halfway through a four-year contract seems unusual."
New Zealand Cricket Players' Association manager Heath Mills was scathing in his assessment of the ECB's stance, calling it "silly". "The ECB have dreamt up this 'No-Objection Certificate' over the past few days and are using that to try to force their counties to break contractual agreements," Mills said.
As well as Marshall, Hampshire-bound Shane Bond and Andre Adams could be immediately affected.
"In their haste to ostracise the players they seem to have forgotten these players have signed contracts with the counties.
"I think this is a rather sloppy effort by the ECB to try to please India. In fact, the way national boards have been dealing with the ICL is getting a little bit silly. The biggest joke is the nonsense spouted about not dealing with the ICL because they don't have an anti-doping programme. Well, neither do India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe yet I don't see the ECB not playing these countries for the same reason. That's a slightly hypocritical stance."
County chief executives were reportedly trying to find a way round the situation. Ian Lynam, a sports lawyer at Charles Russell LLP in London, was reported in the Times as saying that a ban for playing in a rebel competition would be unlikely to be upheld.
Lynam made a comparison to the Greig v Insole case in 1978 that came about after the TCCB (the former guise of the ECB) introduced a ban from county cricket for all participants in Kerry Packer's World Series. The court held that the ban was not reasonable in the circumstances.
