PCB hoping for a series against India in August

Struggling to meet its expenses as a result of no international cricket in the country since the last three years, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is expecting to play a series against India in August this year.

Since the terror attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team outside the Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore, in March, 2009, no international team has visited Pakistan. The Green Shirts have been playing all their matches away from home.

To their credit however, Misbah-ul-Haq and company have done quite well in international cricket. Most of the sporting pundits believe that any other team could have struggled to compete at the highest stage of the game without playing any home matches.

A source in the PCB, on the condition of anonymity, revealed that the PCB desperately wants to play a series against India later this year. If the Men in Blue cannot travel to Pakistan because of security concerns, the board is even ready to host the series at a neutral venue.

“In the future tours program India is supposed to tour Pakistan in August. We are hoping that even if they don’t tour [the country] for security reasons, they should at least play us at a neutral venue because we badly need revenues from this ‘home’ series,” he expressed.

Pakistan toured India recently for two T20 Internationals and three One Day Internationals (ODIs). Misbah’s men won the ODI series by two games to one; whereas, the T20 series was squared 1-1.

The source further added that the board is finding it extremely hard to meets its expenses and wants to host some series to get rid of these financial troubles.

“Recently the board has received USD 3 million [approximately 30 crore rupees] as its share of the last ICC T20 World Cup. But the expenses are increasing every day. The board now has to issue fresh central contracts to the players for 2013,” he added.

It must be noted that the PCB was considered to be one of the richest cricket boards before the deterioration of law and order in the country.

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Posted by Yasir Hashmi on Feb 16 2013. 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.