Former Test players Mushtaq Ahmed and Rana Naved will be unable to fulfill their English county contracts after the Pakistan cricket authorities refused to grant them no objection certificates.

Both players have signed for the rebel Indian Cricket League Twenty20 series.

Mushtaq has been a regular for Sussex, bowling them to the championship title last year while Naved is due to play for Yorkshire.

Shafqat Naghmi, PCB chief operating officer, dismissed on Thursday local media reports that it had issued NOC's to both players so they could play county cricket.

"The PCB policy is that all ICL players or those players who have appeared in unauthorised tournaments are not eligible to play for Pakistan or in any tournament in Pakistan," he said.

"The factual position is that some counties had asked the PCB to issue NOC's for these players.

"But we've now informed them very clearly that since these players are not contracted to us nor eligible to play in Pakistan we don't come anywhere into this issue at all."