Pak board wants India to be its ‘home ground' for all international matches

It’s still a game of glorious uncertainties. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) wants to make India ‘home’ where it can host all its international series. “We would like to make India our home,’’ PCB chief Shahryar Khan told HT from Lahore on Saturday.

Khan said the PCB has offers from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as well but would prefer India. “India will be more cost-effective,’’ he added.

In international cricket, bilateral series are generally reciprocal so that revenues can be shared. Currently, Pakistan host their international matches in the UAE because teams are still wary of travelling to the country following a terror attack on the Sri Lankan team bus in 2009.

Asked if the PCB had security concerns given that the Shiv Sena has, in the past, strongly objected to the Pakistan team visiting India, Khan said: “We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) did not rule out the possibility of offering its help to Pakistan, but said there were quite a few issues, some of them beyond the two boards’ control, which have to be looked into before things moved ahead.

“At the moment we are more concerned about hosting the T20 World Cup next year and a packed Indian international calendar. We really don’t know if we would be able to provide grounds,” a senior BCCI official told HT.

Cricketing ties between the arch-rivals cooled considerably after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, blamed on Pakistan terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba. Pakistani players have also been excluded from the money-spinning Indian Premier League.

Khan was in India earlier this month to meet BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya and discuss the revival of bilateral series between the countries. According to a memorandum of understanding signed between the two boards, India and Pakistan have agreed to play six bilateral series until 2022. The last time Pakistan played in India was a three-match one-day series in December 2012.

On Friday, Pakistan hosted Zimbabwe in a T20 match — the first time in six years that a Test-playing nation has toured the strife-torn country since the Lahore attack of 2009.

The International Cricket Council still does not consider Pakistan a safe venue for international matches and has not appointed international umpires for the two-T20 and three-ODI series in Lahore.