Pakistan should 'create a situation where India asks us to play': PCB director

Published February 11, 2019
Wasim Khan (R) believes India would itself want to play Pakistan if the latter becomes a top team. — File
Wasim Khan (R) believes India would itself want to play Pakistan if the latter becomes a top team. — File

Pakistan Cricket Board's newly appointed managing director Wasim Khan believes the national team needs to "create a situation where India asks us to play" instead of vice-versa, ESPNcricinfo reported on Sunday.

PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani, who was addressing the media in a joint presser with Khan, agreed with his MD, saying: "If we can take Pakistan cricket to a level where we are among the top three teams in the world, they will come on their own to play with us."

"It's sad that we are not playing against them but life continues. We need to move forward and carry on. We can't wait forever to play India. Our focus is to develop Pakistan cricket and get our team and players a lot of success at the international level," Khan said while further elaborating his point.

"I don't think we're going to see any solutions anytime soon," the new managing director said while adding that Pakistan's focus, at this point, should be over bettering its own internal structure.

He, however, did not completely rule out the possibility of taking measures to bring India back to dialogue: "I think elections are going on in India, so nothing is going to happen in the near future. But, we are trying and Ehsan is trying hard to get them to the table and get things moving."

Agreeing with Khan, Mani said: "Until it's [elections in India] not done there is no point in engaging them at this stage because we have to start over with new people in the BCCI."

He added: "But our relations with the Indian board are very good and we have mutual respect but we won't be imploring them to play us."

Touching upon his strategy of improving Pakistan's domestic cricket structure, Khan said: "We need to get the consistency and sustainability so we are looking at our internal affairs ... let's get our domestic cricket right and make our grassroots stronger than ever and make our international team more sustainable in the near future so that they are successful at all levels."

Pakistan and India have been involved in a tussle over the latter's continued refusal to play a series in Pakistan. The tiff first started in 2009, when the then PCB chief Zaka Ashraf pushed the Board of Control for Cricket in India to play more matches against Pakistan.

Later, in Najam Sethi's era, PCB started legal proceedings against BCCI while claiming that the Indian board had failed to honour a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in 2014.

The PCB claimed that the MoU was binding. The International Cricket Council on November 20, 2018 dismissed Pakistan's case against India and declared that its ruling is binding and non-appealable, making sure that the matter does not return to its table.

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