The status of the series between Pakistan and India in the UAE this winter is in precarious balance, as the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) tries to work out whether or not India are interested.
In the estimation of one PCB official, the chances of it happening are “50-50”. On Tuesday, the board sought clarification from its Indian counterpart on the status of a series that is supposed to be the first of six the pair signed up for in May 2014.
The series is supposed to be played this December but despite Pakistani persistence, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has yet to confirm that it will go ahead.
In fact, the BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur said in July that any resumption in ties was unlikely until political relations between the two countries improved. With time running out, the PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan wants the BCCI to make a final decision sooner rather than later.
“We are asking them that you have signed an MoU, now are you going to play us or not?” he told The National. “Fluctuations in the political climate keep happening but we have to decide. We’ve written a gentle letter to them asking them to let us know and not to leave it till the last minute.”
The series has come under increasing doubt as relations between the governments have faltered. Despite the climate, Shaharyar has made several attempts to repair ties, visiting India twice recently.
As a former diplomat and the board chairman who helped restart bilateral cricket with India in his first stint in the early 2000s, he has some sway. But the political atmosphere between the two countries has proved to be a particularly difficult obstacle this time.
“We are saying: ‘are you coming or not? If you need government permission, then go and get it’,” he said.
The status is further complicated by the availability of only the smallest window within which the series can take place.
India are engaged in a home series with South Africa that finishes on December 7. They are also scheduled to play Australia in a limited-overs series in Australia that begins on January 12.
Effectively that leaves the two sides with less than a month in which to host what was, originally, scheduled to be a full series of three Tests, five ODIs and Twenty20s. The logistics, as well as the politics, are why the PCB official felt that the series is as likely to go ahead as it is to be postponed.
The official told The National that at the request of the BCCI, Pakistan have offered to take a Test off the itinerary to fit it in to that time frame. That will leave space for six limited-overs matches, a likely combination of both ODIs and T20s.
Pakistan are scheduled to host England for a full series in October and November but the second half of their winter schedule is bare until February, when they launch the first Pakistan Super League in Doha.
Pakistan and India have not played a full bilateral series since the end of 2007, when Pakistan toured India. The Mumbai terror attacks the following year led to the scrapping of a return visit by India in January 2009.
Since then, the two have played only at ICC events and a short, limited-overs series in India at the end of 2012.
The PCB has felt the financial crunch of not playing India bilaterally, intensified further by not being able to play any international cricket at home because of security concerns.
But as Shaharyar pointed out in a separate interview recently, the PCB has survived without playing them. “It’s not that we can’t survive without playing them,” he said. “We are surviving, and can survive, but our position is that the game shouldn’t be mixed up with the politics.”
Broadcast matters
If fluctuating political temperatures were not enough, Pakistan’s broadcasting partner has also been one of the obstacles standing in the way of a resumption of cricket with India.
Ten Sports has been the Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) broadcaster for home games more or less uninterrupted for over a decade now. It will broadcast the series with India, if it goes ahead.
But Zee Entertainment, of which Ten Sports is a part, has been in the bad books of the Indian board over the past decade, embroiled in legal battles in India.
More recently, the Essel Group, the vast Indian business conglomerate which owns Zee, has announced plans to launch a parallel cricket structure. That has set off alarm bells within the cricket establishment – essentially the Big Three boards of India, Australia and England that control the game – that views any plans as a direct threat to their control.
Subsequently they have sought to put pressure on those countries that have broadcast deals with Ten Sports, of which there are five.
But PCB chairman Shaharyar said the broadcaster’s issue, at least, had been resolved.
He said the BCCI “asked us for clarification on Ten Sports” which have been given.
“Ten Sports have stated to the ICC in a written document that they are not doing the things they are accused of. The accusations that they are helping Lalit Modi or starting another league, they have given a written reply saying it is not true.”
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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