EVER since the terrorists attacked the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team during a Test at Lahore in March 2009, cricket at all levels in the country has remained in a limbo.

Pakistan haven’t had opportunities to host an international team for a full series for fear of security and still needs to do a lot of convincing to lure foreign teams.

It is no less a miracle, however, that despite all the forces working against us, cricket has continued to survive with its nomadic existence with Pakistan fulfilling their international commitments in the foreign fields.

For this we have got to appreciate the time and effort put in by the officials of the PCB to keep the ball rolling in whatever way possible and their attempts to occasionally host teams such as Zimbabwe and recently a World XI and Sri Lanka for a T20 game.

Such efforts from PCB provide a window for the future tours depending on how conducive the conditions are security wise or politically. conducive.

Political instability and failure of successive governments to maintain law and order has not helped either, nor has the embedded corruption which has seen the politicians, a great majority of them, acting as parasites at the expense of the national security while also depleting financial resources.

Worse still is the fact our relationship with our neighbours have not been cordial, and especially in relation to cricket, have seldom been good with India.

Since 1952, when we first played against them as a Test playing nation in India, there have been inconsistency in bilateral relations because of political dictates, mainly from the Indian government, which to this day has not changed.

We played them last in a series in 2007 in India and since then, there has been a lull with India refusing to play Pakistan at Test level because of feuds of different kind that continue to influence the minds of people across the border who mix sports with politics.

Despite all odds, Pakistan and PCB have always shown a saner approach towards the situation, including offers to BCCI to send the Indian team to play Pakistan at neutral venues.

But all attempts by PCB have not come to any fruition because of the absurd attitude and stance that India adopts every time they are asked to fulfill their commitments vis-a-vis an MoU they had signed to have a number of bilateral contests in years to come.

That has indeed caused Pakistan heavy losses over the years in terms of finances. So it has left the PCB with no option but to try their luck by pressing on the ICC to again convince India to honour their commitments.

Najam Sethi and company are geared up to fight their case tooth and nail in the next meeting of the ICC to recover their losses.

I personally feel though that the ICC will be as ineffective in this matter as they have always been, often telling their members to sort out their own series of matches. The ICCfully realises the delicate situation in which both Pakistan and India have been in the game, especially with reference to ICC events.

This is clear double standard and bigotry no less on part of both the ICC and especially India who are aiming to keep Pakistan away out of the list of six nations that it would play during the scheduled World Test Championship in 2019.

We have also come to know that if all their efforts come to nothing, the PCB will be seeking justice in High Courts of Britain for which nearly a million dollar have been has approved to contest their case against the BCCI.

To me it sounds a move devoid of logic and a wastage of financial resources to use all energies and resources towards convincing the court to give a judgement in their favour and bind India through a court order to compensate the losses suffered by PCB in all these years.

Being subservient to the orders of their militant Hindu extremists government, India are likely to seek refuge by telling the court that they cannot go against the wishes of their government as far as playing a bilateral series against Pakistan is concerned.

The MoU in fact have little bearing on the case for its lack of legal binding. The best route I suppose is to have a good working relationship at political level which at the moment appears to too far off.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2017