Moeen, Hales lead England contingent for inaugural Afghanistan Premier League

Eight English players including Moeen Ali and Alex Hales were among the biggest names signed in Tuesday's draft for the inaugural Afghanistan Premier League T20 (APL) but their involvement will depend on an ICC sanction which has not yet been granted.

The ECB have indicated that they will reluctantly grant No-Objection Certificates (NOCs) for the APL, in part to avoid potential restraint-of-trade implications. Rob Key, England's managing director, encouraged players to take "the right moral stance" last month and said that he would not have played in the league himself due to "the way that women have been treated" in Afghanistan.

However, any NOCs will be contingent on the league being sanctioned by the ICC. Cricinfo has learned that the APL is yet to receive a sanction, though the approval process - which takes into account minimum event staging standards, such as anti-corruption and anti-doping measures - is ongoing.

At this stage, it is unclear if the APL will receive a sanction. The ICC's application form for sanctioning of a domestic cricket event stipulates that the relevant board must inform the ICC of full details of franchise owners. Only three out of five APL franchises have been sold, with two teams - 'Team Paktia' and 'Team Balkh' - given generic, holding names at Tuesday's draft.

ICC sanctions are often granted at the last minute, with the inaugural European T20 Premier League only signed off at a few days' notice earlier this year.

Ollie Pope, Will Smeed and David Willey were among the English players to withdraw from the APL draft following backlash over their potential involvement. Tonia Antoniazzi, the Labour MP who led calls for England to boycott their Champions Trophy fixture against Afghanistan last year, told players to seriously consider the potential implications of signing up for the league.

However, eight English players were signed in Tuesday's auction: Hales, Moeen, Joe Clarke, Tymal Mills, Olly Stone, Luke Wood, Tom Moores and Chris Wood. None of the eight players are centrally contracted by the ECB. Mohammad Amir, the former Pakistan fast bowler, also entered the draft as a British citizen and won a deal.

The ECB refuses to play bilateral cricket against Afghanistan due to the Taliban government's treatment of women and girls, which United Nations experts have described as "gender apartheid". The exiled Afghanistan women's team toured England this summer and is pushing for greater recognition.

There was further English involvement at the draft, with England's 2019 World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan involved in its broadcast as a pundit. Morgan said that the APL draft was "an exciting day, the start of a new journey that I'm looking forward to."

Scotland opener George Munsey was also signed in Tuesday's draft, with Cricket Scotland expected to take a similar stance to the ECB on the issuance of NOCs.

The APL, which will be run jointly by the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) and promoters Trans Group and ITW Universe, is due to launch on December 27. Its first season is due to be staged in the UAE, though the league's marketing material suggests that it intends to host games at the Kabul International Cricket Stadium in future years.

The five franchises had already chosen captains and coaches at a previous mini-draft last month, but two teams switched captains at the last minute on Tuesday with Rahmanullah Gurbaz moving from Nangarhar Cosmic to Team Paktia, and Rahmat Shah moving the other way.

The ACB said on its social media channels: "Following the APL Technical Committee's decision and mutual agreement between the respective franchise owners and captains, Rahmanullah Gurbaz will lead Paktia, while Rahmat Shah Zarmati takes charge of Nangarhar."

However, the move left many onlookers dumbfounded, including Nangarhar's 'ambassador' Mark Boucher. "Your guess is as good as mine," he told reporters when asked about the switch. "It's a dynamic that I don't get involved in. It's above my pay grade. I don't know what's going on behind the scenes… I got downstairs, and they told me that the captains had been swapped."