LAHORE: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Najam Sethi on Friday expressed hope that both India and Pakistan will play lot of cricket in the next eight years but admitted in the same breath that the clouds of uncertainty will continue to hover because the Indian government’s permission will be key for the BCCI to play the bilateral series.

“To protect the bilateral series against all countries including India, there will be a binding agreement in place, to be signed by all ICC member countries, something which was earlier missing from the ICC Future Tour Programme and which now gives a legal cover to the respective boards to claim damages in case of violation.”

Sethi told a press conference in a crowded press conference here after his return from Dubai where he attended the ICC boards meeting. In the same meeting, the PCB also accepted the ICC revamp plan of the Big Three, though conditionally.

“Our decision to conditionally support the Big Three has been taken to avoid isolation,” Sethi said. “We need to play against big teams to stay in line and playing against India can generate huge funds,” he said.

Sethi claimed that the case was not dealt properly by his predecessor Zaka Ashraf since the PCB had been left alone after opposing the Big Three while all other nine member countries had agreed to the revamp plan of the ICC.

“We should have ensured that we are not left alone or isolated in the debate,” said Sethi of Zaka’s earlier stance on Big Three.

“South Africa, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, who were also against the revamp plan initially then decied to support it one after another but the PCB could not realise or counter the situation and faced isolation,” he said.

“However, now the PCB has caught the bus and we are well on the road. We have gained the maximum we could from the recent ICC meeting and it is a great achievement,” he claimed. Sethi insisted that the PCB needs money to run its domestic cricket and to meet other expenditure.

“If we haad continued the way we were doing, we would have gone bankrupt in two years,” he said. “But now the PCB estimates a huge earning of around Rs30 billion from bilateral series with leading nations in the next eight years. The PCB share in the ICC income through World Cups has also been raised from 0.3 to 1.3,” added Sethi.

He reminded that he had met quite a few ex-PCB chairmen to have their input whether to support the Big Three or not, and they had advised him to also take the legal position before taking any decision. “So the PCB sought legal opinion from local and foreign experts before giving conditional support to the Big Three,” he said.

In another important disclosure, Sethi said that Pakistan will nominate the next president of the ICC and added that the decision is a major achievement for the PCB.

He said in deciding to play the bilateral series with Pakistan, other countries had also made changes to their already decided schedules.

He said Sri Lanka would host Pakistan for two Tests and three One-day International matches’ series in August and it has been principally agreed between the two cricket boards.

The series will definitely end the activity drought for the Pakistan team which were originally set to play just one series in 2014, that against Australia in the UAE in October and November.

Sethi, however, avoided disclosing the details of the bilateral series with other countries, saying that the details would be announced once all the countries sign the binding agreements.

Commenting on the issue of banned fast bowler Mohammad Aamir, Sethi said hopefully the pacer would be allowed to play cricket from next year (2015) if all goes well bacuse the PCB have presented a detailed report on Aamir’s case to the ICC, compiled by one of Board’s committees. Aamir is currently serving a five-year ban imposed by the ICC for his act of spot fixing on the 2010 tour of England.

Speaking about the recent controversy involving former captain Rashid Latif who has refused to sign the contract with the PCB as chief selector, Sethi said he is unable to fathom why the former Test wicketkeeper had declined to work.“We had sent Rashid the contract but he returned it , saying he is not ready to work with the PCB as chief selector,” Sethi said. “I opted for Rashid Latif despite the fact that some people had given me mixed opinion about the wicketkeeper.

They had feared it will not be easy to work with Rashid , but I had made my mind to accept this challenge because our cricket needs honest men. I still have great respect for Rashid,” he concluded.