Christchurch: The chance for Rahul Dravid and company to get some practice ahead of the Test series against New Zealand has run into rough weather after the Players’ Association refused to add one more foreigner to the existing one in the state championship.

Dravid, VVS Laxman, Murali Vijay, Amit Mishra, Dhawal Kulkarni and Laxmipathi Balaji would join the Indian squad later and the Indian board has asked its New Zealand counterpart to provide some match practice.

New Zealand Cricket (NZC) chief executive Justin Vaughan had said that efforts are on to tag the six Indians to the teams for the state championship but it has met with protest from the country’s Players’ Association.

“Dravid and Co. are penciled in to play the State Championship round that runs from March 6 till March 9. The teams that they will represent will either be decided by a ‘contestable process’ or made by random allocation,” Vaughan had earlier said.

Vaughan was quoted in a local newspaper that NZC had the facility “under the playing regulations” to change the rules surrounding overseas players. (PTI)