The ``International All-Star Cup'' set down for San Francisco, New York and Toronto early next month edged closer to farce yesterday, with the tournament organisers forced to release a heavy watered-down list of participating players.

Earlier this month PostMedia Group (PMG), a US-based media and entertainment group run by and targeting expatriate Indians, announced a three-match ``Asia XI v The World XI'' series of limited-over games to be played in early August at San Francisco (3Com Stadium), New York (Columbia Stadium), and Toronto (the Stardome). More than thirty players were named originally, the Asian team including the best players of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and captained by Mohammad Azharuddin, the World XI said to be captained by Steve Waugh and including players from all remaining Test nations.

Despite claims by PMG that all players had agreed to take part, there were some obvious committment clashes, especially with those involved in county cricket and the England-New Zealand Test series. The series was not sanctioned by the ICC - though it is not known at this stage whether PMG had made an official approach to the ICC for their support.

Over the past fortnight since the initial announcement, the unavailability of many of the originally-listed players became obvious. Apart from the obvious impossibility of the appearance of England and New Zealand players, Pakistani players were removed from the list - presumably for reasons associated with international tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.

Yesterday both the Australian Cricket Board and the United Cricket Board of South Africa announced that none of their contracted players would be released for the series. PMG, deprived of the Waugh twins, Shane Warne and Adam Gilchrist by this decision, have responded by naming three non- contracted Australians.

Former Australian off-spinner Gavin Robertson, retired Australian Test captain Mark Taylor, and Paul Reiffel, who announced his retirement from international cricket last week, are included in PMG's latest team list for the ``World XI''. While Taylor no longer plays representative cricket at any level, Robertson is under contract to Cricket New South Wales, and Reiffel likewise to the Victorian Cricket Association. Reiffel's sudden decision to retire from the international game last week was based in part on his unwillingness to embark on the Australian tour of Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe due to family committments.

On top of these announcements comes the unsurprising revelation that the BCCI has declined to release any of the current Indian national team to take part in this series. The Indian players have a heavy schedule ahead of them in official tournament play beginning in the last week of August in Sri Lanka, followed by one-day series in Singapore, Canada and Kenya in the following six weeks. In their place PMG have named a number of ex- internationals including retired players such as Maninder Singh.

A number of leading West Indian players including current captain Brian Lara and former captain Courtney Walsh are listed in the World XI lineup. The stance of the WICB in relation to this series is not known.

In a report published on the PMG-owned India Post website and attributed to the ``India Post News Bureau'' yesterday, PMG CEO Romesh K.Japra said ``The problem is not at the level of individual players. They are all more than willing to come. But we are facing some obstacles from national and international cricket authorities who are not inclined to let them participate.''

Dr Japra was reported as saying that there was pressure being exerted by national boards for the All-Star Cup not to go ahead. ``But that has only strengthened our resolve to go ahead with the series which millions of fans in North America are looking forward to,'' he was quoted as saying.

Unconfirmed reports indicate that all invited players were offered $ US 25,000 each to take part in the tournament.

The teams, as re-released by PMG yesterday, are as follows (and the spelling is theirs):

Asia XI: Arjuna Ranatunga, Arvinda D' Silva, Sanath Jayasurya, Chaminda Vaas, Vikramasinghe, Jayawardane, Navjot Sidhu, Vinod Kambli, Maninder Singh, Vijay Yadav, Atul Wasan, Praveen Amre.

World XI: Brian Lara, Jimmy Adams, Courtney Walsh, Phil Simmons, Ridley Jacob, Marvin Dhillon, Chander Paul, Gavin Robertson, Mark Taylor, Paul Reiffel, Andy Flower, Neil Johnson, Henry Olanga, Ravindu Shah.''

The first match is scheduled to take part at 3Com Park (formerly Candlestick Park), San Francisco, on Tuesday August 3.