PCB chairman wants special compensation fund for Pakistan cricket

KARACHI - PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan has called for the ICC to set up a special compensation fund for Pakistan after the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) agreed to send their team to Bangladesh this month despite security concerns.

Khan said in an interview that the PCB would again push its case in the ICC for the setting up of a special fund for Pakistan cricket.

"The ECB has refused to send its team to Pakistan because of security concerns but after consulting its foreign office and sending its security experts to Bangladesh it has agreed to send its team to Bangladesh," Khan said.

"We will again push our case that why is Pakistan only being deprived of international cricket at home. But we are hopeful that if we can have the Pakistan Super League final in Lahore next February then our case will get stronger," he said. Pakistan moved a proposal at the last ICC meeting asking the members to support the establishment of a special compensation fund for Pakistan cricket.

The ICC special task force set up on Pakistan cricket has been assigned the job of going through the feasibility of the PCB proposal.

Khan said Pakistan cricket had suffered a lot since 2009 due to foreign teams refusing to tour the country on security grounds.

"But this case of England agreeing to go to Bangladesh will strengthen our case in some ways," he added. Khan said that Pakistan had been forced to move its home series to the UAE and it was incurring loss of revenues because of this for the last seven years.

He said that terrorist attacks in parts of Pakistan from time to time dealt a blow to PCB's case in the international cricket community and recently, after the suicide attack in Quetta, it had been a step backward for Pakistan cricket.

ePaper - Nawaiwaqt