The Pakistan Cricket Board on Saturday claimed that BCCI has invited their team to play its ‘home’ series in India next month but their Indian counterparts said no such formal proposal has been made yet.
later in the day, BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur said the talks can resume if Pakistan agree to playing in India, instead of proposed UAE.
PCB Chairman Shaharyar Khan told the media in lahore that he was given a formal proposal by his Indian counterpart Shashank Manohar during a phone call on Friday.
“Shashank Manohar called me up on Friday evening and told me they have got clearance from their government to play against us. But he said they wanted to play the series in India and not in the UAE,” Shaharyar claimed.
BCCI President Manohar, however, said that they have not even approached the government yet for clearance and any statement to this effect was not correct.
Shaharyar claimed that BCCI has promised fool-proof security for the Pakistan team during the series.
“Manohar also said that the Indian Board would provide the best security to our team and schedule the matches in places like Mohali and Kolkata where there is no problem at playing a Indo-Pak match,” he added.
“Thirdly he said that the Indian Board would devise a formula to ensure that we don’t suffer any loss of revenues for playing our home series in India,” he said.
The PCB chief, however, said he was not authorised to take a decision on Manohar’s offer and he would consult the board of governors when they meet on November 17.
“We can only start talking if they agree to play in India,” Thakur said.
“It was not possible to play in Pakistan and a neutral venue as the Indian government would not give permission,” he told ESPNcricinfo.
“To keep the India-Pakistan series alive the BCCI has made an effort and spoken to the PCB [to see] if they are keen to play in India,” he said.