Pakistan to raise issue at ACC moot

Bilateral cricket series with India

KARACHI: There is virtually no hope of reviving bilateral cricketing ties between Pakistan and India because of the current border tensions between the two neighbours.

But that hasn’t stopped Pakistan’s cricket chief Shaharyar Khan from raising the issue again.

On Thursday, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman told reporters in Islamabad that the Board will take up the case with the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) in a meeting in Sri Lanka later this month.

Shaharyar made it clear that PCB is not “begging” India to play bilateral series, stressing that Pakistan are well within the rights to “push” the Indians into honouring the memorandum of understanding for six bilateral series between the two countries.

“We are not begging them to play us. Please don’t get that impression. But they (BCCI) signed a proper memorandum of understanding  with us to play six bilateral series between 2015 and 2023 and they didn’t meet their commitment,” Shaharyar commented after attending a meeting of the National Assembly’s standing committee on sports.

“It is our right as a cricket nation to push them to honour the MoU. They immediately owe us at least two home series as the last full bilateral series was played in India in 2007. In the MoU, Pakistan was to host four series between 2015 and 2023,” he said.

The PCB chief said that both countries have to play bilateral cricket according to the MOU signed in 2014 during the ICC meeting and the PCB depended on these series for huge financial boosts.

Shaharyar said Pakistan had lost huge revenue due to India’s refusal to play them and that was the reason the matter was also been taken up in the ICC executive board in Cape Town.

“We have been consulting our lawyers on this issue of the MoU and we will be taking up this case of bilateral series at the Asian Cricket Council meeting this month,” he said.

Shaharyar was recently elected chairman of the ACC and will chair the next meeting in Colombo on 17 December.

Though the ACC meet is being held to discuss development issues and future schedule of tournaments, the PCB chief said he will be discuss the MOU with India.