Shaharyar intensifies efforts for return of international cricket

KARACHI: Buoyed up by the successful hosting of a brief limited-overs series against Zimbabwe on home soil earlier this summer, Pakistan’s cricket chief Shaharyar Khan has intensified his efforts to bring more international action to his country in the near future.
Shaharyar, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), has been holding a series of meetings in England with influential cricket officials in a bid to pave the path for a permanent return of international cricket to Pakistan.
According to a PCB spokesman, Shaharyar has been keeping himself busy following the International Cricket Council (ICC) annual conference that was held in Barbados late last month.
Shaharyar landed in London after the June 28 moot and has already had a meeting with the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) president David Morgan. He also met with former England captain Mike Brearley – a leading member of the ICC’s Task Force on Pakistan, which was revived by the ICC in its latest annual meeting.
On Monday afternoon he held a meeting with the newly-elected Chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, Colin Graves and also Giles Clark, who is the head of ICC’s Task Force on Pakistan.
Before coming back to Pakistan in the last week of July, the PCB chief would also meet heads of Cricket Ireland and Cricket Scotland.
“These meetings are aimed at exploring possibility of future cricket exchanges and also with regard to England’s series against Pakistan at the UAE in October,” a PCB spokesman said.
Pakistan’s five-match series against Zimbabwe that included three One-day Internationals and two Twenty20 games was Pakistan’s first series on home soil in more than five years. International teams had been staying away from Pakistan since the March 2009 terrorist attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore.