THE news that the much-trumpeted Pakistan Super League (PSL) has been indefinitely postponed is not the biggest surprise of the season. The fear of it never taking off was always on the cards because of the manner the Pakistan Cricket Board was going about the over-hyped project. One thought that the involvement of Haroon Lorgat, the former International Cricket Council chief executive, would pay off in luring some of the big stars of international repute to appear in the planned Twenty20 extravaganza but it didn’t happen.

In the press release issued on Friday, the PCB has lamented that tight timelines are the main reason for shelving the idea of staging the event for the moment at the request of the stakeholders. Without elaborating the PCB release claims that more than 80 overseas players have signed up to participate in the ambitious tournament which was lavishly publicised and officially launched in Lahore just over four weeks ago.

Such a revelation is contentious because the cricket board is unwilling to name the individuals who have supposedly shown their ‘keen interest’ in what would have been the newest addition to other such leagues in business around the world where international players, both current as well as those past their prime, are now regularly competing.

One crucial factor mentioned in the media release is conflict of PSL scheduling. The event was to run from March 26 to April 7 during a period when several nations would be engaged in scheduled bilateral series of Tests, One-day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals — prime example of this being Sri Lanka hosting Bangladesh and one can guess most of the competing players other than Pakistan would have come from these two countries.

The PCB, moreover, fears that the original PSL dates would have endangered the prospects of potential big names missing out on opportunity to play in Pakistan. The most heartening aspect of the PCB media release, however, was that the word security was not mentioned even once in it.

The sensitive issue of security, or the lack of it, has been a thorny point and the key element which has constantly dissuaded the top foreign teams — England, Australia, South Africa and India — from touring Pakistan since that tragic deadly terror attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore on March 3, 2009.

The PCB’s announcement of putting off the tournament sounds more like a face-saving exercise than the lack of preparation because the cricket board in a come-what-may-like approach never seriously considered other big issues in their endeavour to organise the event.

For one, the proposed tournament venue was not made public although Lahore was always in a pole position because of the Punjab metropolis being the PCB headquarters and would have suited all parties. Importantly, the national elections are also due to be held in the country and the political activities in every nook and corner would leave no room for such a venture.

The law and order situation prevalent for long in the country with unending spree of killings making media headlines has been a paramount point of discussion for Tim May, the former Australian Test off-spinner who in his role as the chief executive of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association (FICA) has been reportedly expressing grave concerns over the holding of PSL while citing security fears.

Whether the PSL takes off in the future is something that would be followed with keen interest as well as with trepidation. While the Pakistan cricketers are sadly no longer able to play in international fixtures within their own country, it would be a miracle if the PCB somehow manages to turn their dream PSL project into a reality. As a Pakistani one fervently hopes that it has been postponed only and not cancelled as some people have already started believing.