PCB pays Windies hefty amount for T20 series in Karachi

KARACHI: Pakistan Cricket Board is likely to spend almost half a million dollars just to ensure that a reasonably good West Indies squad comes to Karachi for an eagerly-anticipated Twenty20 International series early next month.

According to sources, the PCB has made a hefty payment to Cricket West Indies in a bid to make sure that CWI is able to lure most of their leading players for the three-match series to be played here at the newly-renovated National Stadium.

The series which will be squeezed inside three day (from April 1-3) is a major attempt by Pakistan to bring international cricket back to the country.When Karachi hosts the first Twenty20 International on April 1 it will be the first international game in the city of over 20 million since a Test match against Sri Lanka back in 2009.

Meanwhile, according to reports coming from the Caribbean, CWI is offering its players up to 25,000 dollars each to play in the brief series in Pakistan.A Cricinfo report said on Tuesday that CWI is offering its contracted and non-contracted players major pay hikes as an incentive to play the series.

West Indies will announce a 13-man touring squad to tour Pakistan when the ongoing World Cup Qualifier concludes.Depending on the contract status of players, that means they will be getting anywhere between 70% more and double what they would ordinarily be paid. Under the new CWI contracts announced in January, many of non-contracted T20 specialists got a raise of US$1725 to US$5000 per game, along with double match fees for all three formats.

Though CWI will be paying the players, the money for that to happen has come from a payment made by the PCB to CWI for this series — as it is outside the Future Tours Programme (FTP) as it stands. According to a PCB official, that payment to a touring side by the host board is standard for non-FTP series and one the PCB benefited from in a 2013 ODI tour to South Africa.

“Pakistan are looking to play more cricket at home, by playing half of the PSL in Pakistan next year and a number of matches in upcoming bilateral series under the current FTP,” CWI CEO Johnny Grave told Cricinfo. “However what they can’t continue to do is pay international players additional fees to tour Pakistan or PSL.

“So, considering this tour is outside the Future Tours Programme, the PCB have made a payment to CWI that is being fully utilised. CWI isn’t making any money from the series, just supporting cricket going back to Pakistan.”

The issue of paying players extra to tour Pakistan, which hasn’t hosted regular international cricket since the March 2009 terror attacks on the Sri Lanka team, is a delicate one for the PCB. They paid Zimbabwe’s players US$12,500 each for a tour in 2015, the first by any international team to Pakistan since 2009.

Foreign players were also offered extra money on top of their contracts to play in the PSL final in Lahore last year. The players that toured Lahore as part of a World XI last September were also paid by the PCB.

It is an extra cost the board could easily do without but, because the aim is to bring back cricket to Pakistan, it is seen as a long-term investment. The PCB gradually wants to end the practice — no extra money was paid to Sri Lanka when they played a single T20 in Lahore last year, although it was a heavily depleted squad that came.

It is unclear which members of the current squad in Zimbabwe will tour Pakistan, however. According to sources close to players none of five of the Bravo brothers, Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine and Andre Russell — whom chief selector Courtney Browne attacked for choosing PSL over the World Cup Qualifier — were selected. There will also likely be no place for Darren Sammy.

Russell and Dwayne Bravo are currently injured, while Narine also elected not to visit Pakistan, even before doubts resurfaced over his action after he was reported in the PSL.According to his representatives, Pollard does not feel comfortable traveling to Pakistan at the moment. He had already decided not to travel with his PSL side, Multan Sultans, if they had made it through from the group stage.

Whether Darren Bravo was contacted about playing is unknown, but some likely squad members include veteran legspinner Samuel Badree, Rayad Emrit and potentially a recall for Denesh Ramdin.

Badree is set to visit Pakistan with Islamabad United and has the experience of going there with the ICC World XI last year. Emrit, who was recalled for the January T20 series in New Zealand for the first time in a decade, also visited Pakistan for the PSL final in 2017. —with inputs from agencies