LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Monday termed the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) decision to not tour Pakistan for a short series in January as ‘inappropriate’ and said there is no justification for not fulfilling the commitment made earlier.

A detailed press release, issued by the PCB following BCB chief Nazmul Hassan’s statement regarding his team not going ahead with the proposed three-day tour of Pakistan over security grounds, said: “The PCB terms the security reasons cited by Bangladesh for not touring Pakistan in January as “inappropriate”.

“Although no official intimation has so far been received by the PCB from the BCB regarding this, and the decision to tour Pakistan is the sole prerogative of the BCB, it is inappropriate to cite security situation in Pakistan as the main reason behind this decision.

“A lot of cricket-related activity in which many international players have participated was recently held in Karachi and Rawalpindi quite successfully and without any security issue whatsoever which in itself reflects that the atmosphere in Pakistan is congenial for any international team to visit the country,” the release said.

“Moreover, a team of BCB and Bangladesh government who had jointly visited Pakistan to ascertain the security situation went back fully satisfied on the subject. Now it would only be proper for the new BCB president to read the report submitted by that team or visit Pakistan before making any such comments on Pakistan’s current situation.”

On the subject of the PCB releasing the players for Bangladesh league, the spokesman said: “Even earlier the BCB had agreed to tour Pakistan but they were stopped by the Dhaka High Court which is the first ever incident in the history of the sport where a court intervened in the decision taken by two boards.

“And yet, the PCB not only released its players for the BPL but also supported the nomination of then BCB President Mr Mustafa Kamal for the position of the vice-president of the ICC.

“It was because the PCB made a commitment and wherever a commitment is made, we honour it.

“Now for the 2013 edition of BPL, we have to see the commitments and engagements of our players before releasing them for the tournament. However, to associate the release of our players with Bangladesh tour to Pakistan does not hold any merit,” he concluded.

It may be mentioned that the PCB had already written a letter to the BCB, warning it about the possible absence of Pakistani cricketers from the BPL this season in case Bangladesh fails to fulfil its commitment of touring Pakistan.

However, it is felt that since a good number of Pakistan cricketers are set to compete in the lucrative BPL, they might put pressure on the PCB to release them for the league.

Reliable sources told Dawn that some national cricketers are trying to convince the PCB to release them for the league since it is their bread and butter.

“But the PCB wants the cricketers to announce their dissociation from the BPL by themselves,” said one of the sources.