ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Ehsan Mani thanked the title sponsors HBL for entering into new agreement and acknowledging their service for promotion of cricket and country.
Mani, who is also Pakistan Super League (PSL) Chairman, expressed these views during PSL-4 drafting held here at a local hotel on Tuesday. “The PSL was a lesser known brand in the start, but now it is a mega hit and it made possible from support and help from HBL.” HBL representative thanked Mani for his generous words and said. “The bank has been enjoying good partnership with PCB and for development of talent in Pakistan, we look forward to grow it and in next three years, hopefully, a number of talented youth will surface. We are looking at this as an opportunity to give the best talent in Pakistan to the world of cricket and let me assure that HBL will continue to help the shinning youth to showcase their skills and bring laurels for the country at every given stage.
“As a brand, we all about enabling dreams come into reality. We have come forward to join hands with PCB to give budding talent to become future stars, likes of Fakhar Zaman, Shaheen Afridi, Shadab Khan, who all are part of this beautiful PSL platform. We are delighted and honoured to partner PCB and made HBL-PSL single largest brand. We take pride moving forward and join hands yet again to take PSL to newer, bigger and better PSL in coming days,” he added.
Replying to a query, Mani said: “Don’t underestimate the PSL role, as it would have not been possible without support of HBL and franchises. Daren Sammy is also a wonderful example, who is a great ambassador of Pakistan and I strongly recommend giving him Pakistan’s honorary citizenship. We will gradually exceed the PSL matches in Pakistan and hopefully in next two to three years, the entire PSL will be played in Pakistan and in other major cities as well.”
When asked about whether PM had given special directives about cricket, Mani replied, “PM had appointed him and he had given no directives especially, we had same inspirations, PCB will conduct all affairs in free and transparent manner, when asked about any international team is coming to play in Pakistan, Mani said, yes but I won’t share here, about the PSL profit, he said, it is not the forum nor the time, we had made details available on our website, PSL biggest objective is to promote cricket and we need all stake holders help in this regard and we need all to stand behind us.”
When asked when Islamabad and Rawalpindi will host PSL matches, Mani said: “In two or three years, Rawalpindi and Islamabad will host the matches. To another query, the PCB chief said: “It is a matter of confidence and hopefully, the drafting will be made further smooth as super and mega stars are available for selection.” But he couldn’t answer on Sammy’s citizenship issue.
On disputes panel of the ICC’s Dispute Resolution Committee and Pakistan’s appeal against BCCI for compensation being dismissed, Mani said: “We regret this decision, as in 2017, the BCCI had breached an agreement, as they had signed with PCB on April 9, 2014 and had referred the matter to ICC’s dispute panel. The announcement of the decision has come as a disappointment for PCB. We will discuss and see first detailed verdict and then in due course of time, we will announce our future course of action.”