India's home ministry has cleared a limited-overs tour
by the Pakistan team, prompting the BCCI to say the tour "is on" at the
end of the year. The clearance was given at a meeting in New Delhi on
Tuesday between ministry officials and senior representatives of the
BCCI - including its chief administrative officer Ratnakar Shetty, IPL
chairman Rajiv Shukla and chief executive Sundar Raman.
"We have discussed all security aspects (and) the tour is on," Shukla told reporters after the meeting.
The tour - which now needs only a formal announcement by the two boards
to be official - will comprise three ODIs and two Twenty20s at Chennai,
Delhi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Bangalore. Pakistan are due to arrive on
December 22 and Shukla said the tour would continue till January 7 but
the detailed schedule is yet to be announced. However, there is little
room for flexibility because the series is sandwiched between two legs
of England's tour of India.
It will be the first bilateral series between the two sides since
Pakistan toured India in end-2007, though they have met in multinational
tournaments. Cricket ties between the two countries were snapped
following the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai by militants from Pakistan.
The decision to play the series came after prolonged consultations
between officials of the two boards - BCCI president N Srinivasan and
PCB chief Zaka Ashraf had held several discussions this year regarding
resumption of ties - and, latterly, of the two governments.
It is Pakistan's turn to host a bilateral series between the two. But
there has been no international cricket in the country between Full
Members since the March 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka team bus and it is
understood that India were not keen to play at a neutral venue, as has
been the case with all Pakistan's 'home' series since the attack.
Subsequently, Ashraf said India had the prerogative to decide on the
dates and host the series, but the PCB would want the BCCI to share
revenue as they were apparently yet to recover from the financial loss
suffered when India pulled out of their planned tour in 2009.
0 comments:
Post a Comment