The BCCI on Tuesday granted amnesty to 79 current and 11 former players after they snapped their ties with the ICL.

Announcing the major ICL exodus, the BCCI said in a statement that altogether 101 players and others availed the cricket board's time-bound amnesty offer and deserted the rebel Indian Cricket League, bankrolled by the Essel Group.

By snapping ties with ICL, the cricketers immediately became eligible for domestic cricket and would also be considered for international matches once they complete their one year cooling off period, the BCCI said.

"The BCCI, after scrutinising their requests, has written to the concerned state associations that these players are eligible to play in the domestic tournaments for this year", Board secretary N Srinivasan said.

Among the 101 players and others who have deserted ICL were former internationals Rohan Gavaskar, Deep Dasgupta (Bengal), Dinesh Mongia, Reetinder Sodhi (Punjab) and Hemang Badani (Tamil Nadu).

The 11 former cricketers who have quit the ICL are ex-Test skipper Ajit Wadekar, spin legend Erapalli Prasanna and 1983 World Cup-winning Indian squad members Sandeep Patil, Madan Lal and Balwinder Singh Sandhu.

Most of them were tied up with the ICL as coaches.

Kapil still on the ship

Significantly, India's only World Cup-winning skipper Kapil Dev, who is the chairman of the ICL's Executive Board, has not severed his relations with the league along with former Test stumper and ex-Chief Selector Kiran More. The BCCI secretary said that guidelines with respect to participation in Indian Premier League will be intimated in due course.

The Indian Board has already decided that such persons will have to serve a one-year cooling off period before becoming eligible to play international cricket for the country.

Other ex-Test cricketers who rejoined the BCCI fold include Sandeep Patil, Madan Lal, Karsan Ghavri, Balwinder Sandhu, Ashok Malhotra, Pranab Roy, Bharat Reddy, Rajesh Chauhan and Atul Wassan, Srinivasan informed.

Eleven cricketers of the Punjab Cricket Association, including ODI discard Dinesh Mongia, have returned to its fold while 13 and eight players have returned to the Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad cricket associations respectively.

"ICL to keep going"

Meanwhile, though the ICL has been virtually emptied out of its Indian players, the rebel league put up a brave front and said that the league is not shutting down and will recruit new talent as and when it's needed.

"We still have 40-50 players, out of the original 140-odd, on our roster and as and when the need arises we would recruit fresh talent. The League is on. We are not closing down. The next season is in October-November and it's still early days", Roland Landers, Corporate Communications Head of Essel Group, said.

Landers said that in all there were around 85 Indian players in their roster till the second season, out of which 77 have left their fold now.

"We had already left out two of them", he pointed out, one of them being Mongia, who had been suspended in October last for allegedly under-performing, along with former New Zealand all rounder Chris Cairns.

PCB: Yousuf, Razzaq, Nazir, Naved have severed ties with ICL

Only four players -- Mohammad Yousuf, Abdul Razzaq, Imran Nazir and Rana Naved -- had submitted proof of terminating their contracts with the Indian Cricket League before the May 31 deadline, Pakistan Cricket Board said on Tuesday.

"There was a deadline for these players to break ties with unauthorised tournaments as prescribed by International Cricket Council (ICC). Till today we have notifications from only four players that they have left the ICL and want to play for Pakistan again," PCB Director Human Resource Wasim Bari said.

"Apparently, it seems that those ICL players who have not approached us have other plans for their future," he added.

Bari, who is handling the ICL cases, said while the PCB had cleared Yousuf and Razzaq to play for the national team without any penalties, a decision on opener Imran Nazir would be taken soon.

He said any player who leaves the ICL after the May 31 deadline might have to face penalties as per rules and regulations prescribed for unauthorised tournaments.

Around 20 players from Pakistan had joined the ICL since its launch in 2007 with many of them members of the national team at that time.