ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AFP) — Four Pakistani players have received clearance to get their visas to travel to neighbouring India to feature in the lucrative Indian Premier League, the nation’s cricket chief said yesterday.

“Our High Commissioner in New Delhi has confirmed that four Pakistani players — Umar Gul, Sohail Tanvir, Misbah-ul Haq and Kamran Akmal — have got clearance to get visas,” said Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ijaz Butt.

But IPL official Lalit Modi had announced Tuesday that players from across the border would miss the third edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2010) because they did not get their visas before a deadline.

Butt said he would talk to Modi to try and get him to reconsider.

“I hope they will consider this latest development,” Butt told AFP.

Modi had ruled out Pakistani players’ participation in the league after the Monday deadline for completing all formalities including obtaining visas for the March 12 to April 25 event elapsed.

Eleven Pakistani players — Gul, Kamran, Tanvir, Misbah, Younus Khan, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Asif, Shoaib Malik, Salman Butt and Mohammad Hafeez — featured in the first edition of the IPL in 2008.

Pakistani players were then denied permission by Islamabad to play in the second edition earlier this year due to growing political tensions with India after the November 2008 attacks on India’s financial hub Mumbai.