Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Shaharyar Khan has finally given up hope of organising the proposed Indo-Pak series in the near future but has set sights for next year for the resumption of bilateral cricketing ties between the two countries.
Khan told the media in lahore on Wednesday that he had finally given up hope of organising the bilateral series against India in either UAE or Sri lanka in December-January.
“It is impossible to hold the series now as valuable time has gone. But we will now wait and see when the Indian Board tells us they have got clearance from their government to play with us,” Khan said.
“If the clearance comes from the Indians, then we can look at finding a window to play a bilateral series sometime in 2016,” the PCB chief said.
Khan said the PCB believed that it was important for Pakistan and India to resume bilateral ties. “If not this year, we can do something in 2016 but it will all depend on the Indian board telling us when they are ready to play,” he said.
He said whenever the Indian Board got the clearance from its government and a series was planned, it would be Pakistan’s home series as per the MoU signed between the two countries.
‘will abide by Icc decision’
New Delhi: BCCI president Shashank Manohar on Wednesday said that the Cricket Board will abide by the ICC decision of rating Nagpur pitch as “poor” but at the same time termed the inference on the nature of the wicket being a “subjective decision” by ICC match referee Jeff Crowe.
India beat South Africa by 124 runs at Jamtha in Nagpur where the match ended in two and half days with Ravichandran Ashwin getting 12 wickets. later ICC match referee Jeff Crowe reported against the Nagpur track and finally ICC rated it as “poor” and let Nagpur off with a warning.
“The ICC framed rules with regards to poor wickets. There are four categorries. ‘Excellent’, ‘Good’, ‘Poor’ and ‘Dangerous’ wickets. In regards to ‘Poor’ wicket, they have said excessive spin or excessive seam movement, the wicket is considered to be poor,” Manohar told fans during a live interaction on BCCI’s official Facebook page.
“In case of Nagpur, Match Referee stated “Excessive spin on the third day of the game and uneven bounce”. According to me, this is subjective decison taken by Match Referee. Finally, ICC has taken a decision, we would abide by that decision,” said Manohar.
The BCCI president also refuted allegations that his home centre Nagpur and secretary Anurag Thakur’s centre Dharamsala have got preferential treatment on allotment of matches during upcoming World T20. “When it was decided that India would host ICC World T20, BCCI offered eight venues but ICC wanted only five because of cost constraints. Now on paper, Dharamsala and Nagpur are hosting more matches but it also includes the qualifiers that will be played by Afghanistan, Oman, Hong Kong, Scotland etc. But as far as main draw is concerned, matches have been distributed equally,” he said.