The International Cricket Council’s (ICC), ambitious project of resuming international cricket in Pakistan, is going in the right direction at the moment. Since 2009, Pakistan has been forced to play its home matches at UAE, as no international team was willing to visit the country citing security reasons after militants attacked the Sri Lankan team bus in 2009 in Lahore.
Zimbabwe visited the country in 2015 for a limited-overs series, but that was the only exception, as Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) suffered substantial revenue loss while the cricket-obsessed fans starved of international cricket.
The scene, however, is changing this year. In early 2017, the PCB successfully staged the PSL final in front of a sell-out crowd at the Gadaffi Stadium, and now the country has taken another giant leap towards resuming international cricket by hosting the ongoing series against World XI.
The ICC has shown it is firmly behind Pakistan in their quest of ending the long drought of international cricket in the country. ICC CEO Dave Richardson, who attended the second T20I between Pakistan and World XI on Wednesday (September 13), feels the ongoing series can pave the way for more games in the country in the coming days.
Expressing his delight over seeing the game making a comeback in the country, Richardson thanked the fans, media and Giles Clarke, chairman of ICC’s Task Force on Pakistan, for their contribution.
“Very happy to be back once again in Pakistan. To begin with, I would like to thank the Pakistan public for their continued support of cricket in the last few years, in what must have been a difficult time when you didn’t have international cricket. Ensuring our members have the capability to safely stage matches – this is the main reason why the ICC created a Pakistan task team right after the 2009 attacks, under the leadership of Giles Clarke which has put in a lot of work in ensuring a better return for Pakistan cricket,” Richardson said.
“I would like to thank the media for its continued support and coverage of cricket in general. We certainly believe this will be an important stepping stone towards not only building the capability, handling situations within the country, but also build the confidence of the international sporting community, despite the threats made in Pakistan, you have the added capability in dealing with it. Lastly, I would like to express our appreciation for both teams particularly the World XI and for the match officials – Richie Richardson for agreeing to participate in the series. I’m pretty confident, going forward this will be an enormous help in persuading and convincing other countries to tour Pakistan,” Richardson added.
With Pakistan showing their credentials of successfully staging international games, the press asked whether it will pave the way for more international cricket especially the ICC tournaments like the under-19 events or even bigger series.
However, Richardson did not get carried away with the occasion and delivered his comments cautiously.
“The ICC events in this cycle till 2023 are anyway decided and awarded,” he said. “In the last two years, in particular, Pakistan have made tremendous strides to improve their security and bring the threat levels down. But this is a long process, it’s one of the earliest stepping stones, but a critical one. Let’s get through this tour. Let’s have hopefully other teams touring Pakistan. I’m sure in a couple of years’ time we can talk about Pakistan hosting an ICC event.”
“ICC has already agreed to invest and improve the security for a three-four year period. Whether years two and three will include a World XI is still not decided. The intention is to bring more PSL games back to Pakistan, but also for member countries to tour Pakistan, not the World XI under normal circumstances,” he added.