DURING the recent limited over cricket series in India, the Pakistan Cricket Board also invited some former test cricketers of Pakistan to watch the last two one-day matches at Kolkata and Delhi.

If, on the one hand, former test cricketers Hanif Mohammad, Mushtaq Mohammad, Sadiq Mohammad, Imtiaz Ahmad and Intikhab Alam accepted the offer and went to India for watching the one-day matches, on the other hand, Javed Burki, Majid Khan and Imran Khan politely declined the offer made by the PCB.

The point is that, in the first place, being host of the home series, the offer to the former Pakistani test cricketers should have come from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and not from the PCB being the guest cricket board of the away series. But it was not so.

It was strange enough that Pakistan being a guest country, the PCB offered its cricketers of the yesteryear to go and watch cricket in India at its own expense.

By doing so, what did the PCB want to achieve? While being in India, did these former cricketers of Pakistan help in reviving the cricket ties between the two countries? The answer is a big no.

On the contrary, we know that in the past all efforts made by Pakistan at different government and diplomatic levels to persuade India to visit Pakistan had borne no fruit, to say the least.

Why then did the PCB spend its huge funds on an undertaking which was bound to prove an exercise in futility?

There is no example to quote in the cricketing world when a guest country had ever sent its former test cricketers to a foreign country and had borne all their expenses as well.

Yes, it would have been more appropriate if the PCB had honoured these former test cricketers during a home series in Pakistan.

Senior officials at the PCB ought to avoid squandering away the money of Pakistan thoughtlessly in future.

RAFAT MAHMOOD ANSARI Islamabad

Cricket unity THE Pakistan cricket team showed a commendable performance in Pakistan-India T20 and ODI series. Hats off to the Pakistan team.

It has proved to be a New Year’s gift to the Pakistani nation. A lot of involvement of both the nations is observed in Pakistan-India cricket matches. Cricket makes us realise that Pakistanis are a nation full of ambitions.

Even in cricket gossips we say that after losing the toss ‘we batted first’ instead of saying that the ‘Pakistani team batted first’.

Such a ‘we’ shows collectivism, power and unity and takes every Pakistani under its umbrella. We need this collectivism a lot and it shouldn’t be restricted only to the playgrounds: we have to display it in every field.

Nowadays Pakistan is facing severe challenges and we have to come forward with this unity and join our hands to save our beloved Pakistan.

FARIA ALI Faisalabad