Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Shaharyar Khan on Wednesday accused the Board of Control for Cricket in India for failing to comply with their commitment to play as many as six bilateral series in the space of eight years, and promised to take up the matter with the Asian Cricket Council in an upcoming meeting, reported PTI.
Khan, who was addressing the media in Islamabad stated that India had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Pakistan to play six bilateral series in the space of eight years.
“We are not begging them to play us. Please don’t get that impression. But they [BCCI] signed a proper agreement with us to play six bilateral series between 2015 and 2023 and they didn’t meet their commitment. Both India and Pakistan have to play bilateral cricket according to Memorandum of Understanding signed between them,” he said.
The MoU was signed between the teams in 2014 while the last bilateral series between the sides was in 2012-’13, when Pakistan visited India to play a three-match one-day International series. The last full series between the bitter rivals was back in 2007.
Last month, Najam Sethi, head of the PCB executive committee lashed out on BCCI for not giving him a “straight answer” on bilateral ties during an International Cricket Council meet and the PCB had incurred huge losses over the course of the last nine years. This was in the wake of the Indian board’s supremo Anurag Thakur categorically stating that there would be no India-Pakistan ties in the foreseeable future after a militant attack at an Indian army base in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir. The PCB has also recently stated that it will take legal recourse against the BCCI after the India women’s team did not played a scheduled series against Pakistan.
Khan announced that PCB would delve into the issue in at the upcoming Asian Cricket Council meeting with the help of its lawyers, “Pakistan will plead its case at the upcoming meeting of the Asian Cricket Council. We have consulted our lawyers to advise us on the issue. Though the ACC session is related to development, we will discuss the issue with India about the bilateral series on the sideline,” Khan said.
