LAHORE: India’s objection over Pakistan hosting the 2018
Emerging Teams Asia Cup might force the latter to exercise its ‘right’
to pull out of the Asia Cup which will be staged in India in September
next year, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Najam Sethi warned on
Tuesday.
Representatives from India and Bangladesh were
absent during the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) meeting in Lahore in
October after they raised their aforementioned objections in a meeting
earlier in Dubai which led to the decision that Pakistan will host the
Emerging Teams Asia Cup in April 2018.
“The ACC
Development Committee head and Sri Lanka Cricket chairman Thilanga
Sumathipala tried to convince India and Bangladesh that they were also
invited to attend the meeting [in Lahore] but they did not come. So the
committee, with majority members’ votes, went on to make the decision in
favour of Pakistan,” said Sethi at the national team’s new kit
unveiling ceremony here.
“I also raised the point that
since the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is still awaiting
an approval from the government to hold the Asia Cup and wants the visa
clearance of all the participating teams, the PCB will decide whether
to go to India or not because we are also bound by our government’s
clearance,” he added.
“Over this situation, all the member countries decided to defer the discussion and take a final decision later.”
The
PCB chairman admitted that the longer format of the game is struggling
to attract sponsors which was evident when the PCB’s Board of Governors
suggested in a meeting that the country’s premier first-class
competition Quaid-i-Azam Trophy be discontinued.
However,
Sethi believed the traditional format shall be adhered with whether it
attracts any sponsors or not. “Representatives from four regions and
well-reputed departments are a part of the BoG, but none of them could
offer the sponsorship for the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy,” he said.
“But the fact is that the PCB has to invest on the Trophy, even if no sponsors come forward.”
He
expressed delight at the fact that Pakistan will be playing 121 matches
in the next four years as per the International Cricket Council (ICC)
Future Tours Programme finalised recently.
He criticised
the local media for running damaging news items picked up from the
Indian media outlets which suggested Pakistan will be playing just 104
matches.
“An old document about the FTP was leaked from
India, according to which Pakistan were to play 104 matches in the next
four years,” he said.
“The PCB, like other cricket boards
is not allowed by the ICC to make any comments about the FTP in public,
but to defuse the propaganda we were forced to inform the media about
the real facts unofficially,” added the PCB chairman.
“The
PCB, in fact, has done a great job to earn 121 matches for the national
team in the next four years and most of them are against strong
cricketing nations.”
However, Sethi said Pakistan will
not accept the FTP if it won the ongoing legal battle against India
pending with the ICC dispute resolution committee over the Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) that both the countries signed in 2014 and which
ensured Pakistan and India would be playing six bilateral series during
2015-2023.
“If Pakistan wins the case, India will have to
give us the matches and for that purpose the FTP will be changed,” said
Sethi. “And if we lose, the same FTP with some minor changes may go
ahead.”
Meanwhile, the Pakistan Telecommunications
Company Limited signed an agreement with the PCB to sponsor the national
team for the upcoming three-match Twenty20 International series against
New Zealand in January.
Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed,
prolific middle-order batsman Babar Azam and opener Fakhar Zaman were
also present on the occasion.
