Ehsan Mani critical of Pakistan touring India

Former ICC President Ehsan Mani has slammed Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for agreeing on touring India just for a short limited-over series. He stated that even if it is a political decision, the Pakistan administration should have asked India to play a complete bilateral series in Pakistan or at neutral venue.

The arch-rivals are meeting in a bilateral series for the first time in five years. The Men in Blue were due to visit Pakistan twice in the last five years, but the Indian administration cancelled the tour on both occasions.

Mani believes that it was the Indian side which should have toured Pakistan. Talking in an interview with Pakpassion.net, he uttered:

“I think the PCB is wrong to have agreed to this. If it is a political decision, then the PCB should have asked the politicians to make sure that India reciprocated by coming and playing against Pakistan even if it was at a neutral venue.”

Mani represented Pakistan in the ICC, before becoming its president in 2003. He insisted that PCB has not made a good decision to send the team to India, adding that the Indians should first come to play, as they are due to do this.

“My opinion is Pakistan should not be going to India at all. India or the BCCI went out of its way after the Mumbai attack to isolate Pakistan cricket at the ICC,” Mani said.

“This short series will enable BCCI to earn over USD 100 million, probably as much as USD 150 million. All we’re doing is to help India make a lot of money out of us, with no assurance of a reciprocal tour,” he noted.

“It is sort of trying to get the headlines. I don’t see any benefit to Pakistan cricket in terms of getting cricket back to Pakistan by playing this series. Certainly, I am not in favour of it.”

He also showed his concerns over the way things are going on inside the cricket board in Pakistan. He opined that the cricket associations which are the biggest stakeholders of cricket in the country have no say in the matters.

“The person who is enforced on them by the President of Pakistan, who is the Patron, means that person has no accountability to the stakeholders – he’s given a total free hand to do what he wishes with no accountability,” he explained.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=35976

Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Dec 10 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.