The idea of launching the so-called Pakistan Super League (PSL) is like the proverbial bad penny. It keeps coming back.

It’s not even an original idea. The Indians borrowed it from elsewhere, tweaked it according to their needs to launch what turned out to be a successful Twenty20 league. Back in 2007, Pakistan’s cricket chiefs borrowed it from the Indians but failed to adjust it according to their limitations despite making multiple attempts to establish a ‘made in Pakistan’ Twenty20 league not very dissimilar to the billion-dollar Indian Premier League (IPL).

First ‘conceived’ by former Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf, several PCB chiefs have toyed with the idea but neither of them has even come close to turning into a reality. Time and again, the project was initiated, then shelved and then revived again. Many in the cricket board and several others have tried to make careers out of it but to no avail. Despite spending a lot of time and money, PCB has achieved little progress over the last eight years.

Surprisingly Ijaz Butt, who remained the butt of many jokes during his crisis-ridden stint as PCB chief, was the most sensible Board chairman when it came to handling the doomed project. He didn’t waste much time in seeing through it after replacing Nasim Ashraf as the PCB chief.

Zaka Ashraf turned out to be a big fan as he kept making tall claims about Pakistan hosting a mega T20 league on home soil during the best part of his reign as PCB chairman. Blissfully unaware that there were too many ifs and buts involved Ashraf tried to initiate the project full throttle only to ‘postpone’ it. He later tried to take the proposed league to UAE but failed to achieve any different results.

The return of Nawaz Sharif as prime minister saw Najam Sethi replacing Ashraf as Pakistan’s cricket boss. Though Sethi and Ashraf had little in common, the two it seems, did share a common interest: the so-called PSL. Sethi, too, tried his best to launch the league but the thing is that you can’t just succeed by implementing an idea whose time hasn’t come.

The arrival of the seasoned Shaharyar Khan brought a change to the storyline, or so it seemed.

Soon after getting elected as PCB chairman last summer, Shaharyar shelved the PSL project. He didn’t waste much time in realizing that such an enterprise would be more of a burden than an asset for his Board.

"We received some below-par bids for the league and knew straight away that if we went ahead with it the Board would not be able to achieve its targets.

We need it to be a financial success as well as a cricketing success but that can’t happen at the moment," he told me in an interview last year.

"You look around and you’ll see that various other (Twenty20) leagues happening in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or even in the Caribbean are not very successful. The only league that can boast both financial and cricketing success is the IPL (Indian Premier League) but that’s a different story."

However, last week Shaharyar’s PCB decided to revive the PSL project, yet again.

The Board appears confident that the first edition which it wants to hold in the UAE in Jan-Feb next year will both be a cricketing and financial success.

Frankly, I don’t buy it. Pakistan has been trying to launch the league since 2007 with little or no success. The circumstances haven’t changed.

The security situation in Pakistan remains volatile while the prospects of holding a T20 league abroad do not appear to be too tempting. Top Board officials know with experience that UAE is an expensive option which is why the idea of actually making substantial profits from the so-called PSL by staging it in the UAE appears to be a far-fetched one.

I know that roping in some international players to play the league in the UAE won’t be a big problem provided the Board manages to find a suitable window for the event.

Venues like Dubai and even Abu Dhabi are counted among major holiday hubs with their shopping malls and other attractions where the players and their families or friends can have a nice time. Unfortunately, Karachi and Lahore, with their crumbling infra-structure and the growing threat of militant attacks, can hardly compete.

But in a largely saturated market, there is little hope for a new T20 league to make money. The only reason why a PCB-organised Twenty20 league can provide a much-needed shot in the arm to Pakistan cricket is if it is successfully held on home soil. Otherwise what’s the point?

In the short term, it may look like a way out for PCB but in the long run such a move would deal a fatal blow to the Board’s campaign that is aimed at the revival of international cricket in Pakistan.

Even any short term gains aren’t more than a mirage. Let’s assume for a moment that our cricket chiefs opt to take PSL to UAE or any other offshore destination. Such a move would instantly kill the biggest target that PCB wants to achieve by launching the league -- the return of international cricket to Pakistan. If the PSL is staged abroad then it would be another clear message to the rest of the cricket world that Pakistan remains ill-prepared to host foreign players.

It would be better for Pakistan cricket to focus more on much-needed projects that are realistic and achievable. The idea of concentrating on grassroots cricket with an emphasis on upgrading our domestic cricket is a good one. I’m not saying that PCB should entirely give up plans to host a professional T20 league. They can do it but they should wait for the right time.

However, already swamped with a variety of problems, Pakistan’s cricket chiefs seem to be on their way to creating yet another self-inflicted crisis by going after a project that appears doomed to fail.