KARACHI: Board of Control for Cricket in India secretary Jay Shah has accepted Pakistan Cricket Board Interim Management Committee chairman Zaka Ashraf’s invitation to visit Pakistan ahead of the Asia Cup, Minister for Inter-provincial Coordination Ehsan-ur-Rehman Mazari said on Tuesday.

Zaka extended the invitation to Shah, who is also the president of the Asian Cricket Council, on the sidelines of the upcoming International Cricket Council meetings in South Africa before informing Mazari of the development, according to the minister himself.

“I just spoke with Zaka Ashraf and he told me that he has invited Jay Shah to visit Pakistan and witness the security arrangements firsthand,” Mazari told Dawn. “Shah has accepted the invitation and has also invited Zaka in return to visit India ahead of the World Cup.”

Zaka’s meeting with Shah in Durban came amid doubts whether Pakistan will visit India for the World Cup, which is set to be staged from October 5 to November 19.

The bitter rivals last played a bilateral series in 2012 but Pakistan did travel to India in 2016 to feature in the T20 World Cup with much-anticipated match-ups between the two sides only coming in multi-team tournaments.

“Shah told Zaka it was because of government’s orders that the Indian cricket team cannot visit Pakistan and that if the governments of both countries meet and try to solve the issue, India can possibly visit,” said Mazari. “The ice is definitely melting.”

It is still uncertain whether Pakistan will travel for the World Cup, with the country’s government currently carrying out due diligence over the issue through an 11-member special committee constituted by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and headed by Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto.

Mazari is one of the members of the committee and had expressed his “personal opinion” over the issue earlier this week.

He had said that Pakistan should not visit India for the World Cup given that the latter denied coming to Pakistan for the Asia Cup, which is scheduled for August-September.

The minister voiced his stance at a time when a “hybrid model” — which would see Pakistan and Sri Lanka hosting the competition to facilitate India’s participation — had already been accepted by all Asian Cricket Council (ACC) members, hinting towards the PCB potentially stepping back from the settlement.

On Tuesday, however, Mazari said he “didn’t have a problem” with the “hybrid model”, hours after Zaka had confirmed to Dawn that that PCB would honour its commitment that the previous interim Management Committee under Najam Sethi had made with its ACC colleagues.

“Although we don’t support the hybrid model, we will go along with what the PCB’s past management had taken the decision with ACC,” Zaka said.

About Pakistan’s participation in the World Cup, he said: “The PM has formed the committee to decide on venues and if adequate security arrangements were there as per the Government of Pakistan. They will decide on both matters.”

Zaka wasn’t available to comment about his meeting with Shah later on Tuesday but earlier he had said that he would try to explore with his BCCI counterpart the possibilities of the return of bilateral cricket between India and Pakistan.

“Today hopefully [I] will have a meeting with Jay Shah to discuss relations between both boards and build confidence building measures for both countries to play in both countries and develop relations in cricket,” Zaka had said. “We will discuss issues that come up from both sides.”

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2023