Gloucestershire have decided to terminate the contract of Qais Ahmed. The Afghanistan spinner was set to play for the club in the Vitality Blast and the last six matches of county championship.
Thus, Ahmed has joined India's Test specialist batsman Cheteshwar Pujara in the long list of oveseas players who have had their deals terminated due to financial pressure amid coronavirus outbreak.
The England and Wales Cricket Board had earlier put a ban on professional cricket until July 1 due to the outbreak and Gloucestershire have said that they are terminating deals as a part of cost-cutting process.
“In order to protect our finances and the club as best we can we have had to sadly terminate our 2020 season contracts with our three overseas players Cheteshwar Pujara, Qais Ahmad and AJ Tye," a statement from the club read.
“We know how excited we all were at the prospect of seeing both new and returning faces this year and we’re very sorry that this won’t be possible.
“The delay to the season, the postponement of The Hundred and the later start of the T20 Blast as well as the aforementioned financial pressures meant it just wasn’t feasible to bring them over in 2020.
We would like to thank all three of them for their support and understanding.”
