QUETTA, Aug 27: Chairman Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB, Lt. General Tauqir Zia has said on Wednesday that Indian cricket team would be welcome if it was interested to tour Pakistan.
“We are ready to welcome Indians if they wanted to play here,” PCB boss declared while addressing a press conference.
He said that Pakistan tried its level best to restore cricket ties with India but they were reluctant to play in Pakistan.
“There is no problem from our side. Now the ball is in their court and they should decided about playing cricket with Pakistan,” Tauqir remarked.
PCB supremo while replying to a question said if India was not ready to play in Pakistan then we were also not interested to play with them.
Responding to a question about promotion of cricket in Afghanistan the PCB boss said that Afghanistan wanted to send two team to Pakistan for playing matches but PCB told Afghan cricket authorities to send one team which should be strong and could play domestic cricket.
Tauqir said that last year Pakistan invited Afghanistan’s cricket team for playing domestic season and Afghan team played seven matches in the season in different cities of Pakistan including Peshawar and Rawalpindi.
He told reporters that PCB was giving special attention for the promotion of cricket in Balochistan and in this connection Nawab Mohammad Akbar Khan Cricket Stadium was under construction in Quetta and with it’s completion Balochistan would be able to host International and Test matches.
He said that presently their was only one coach was giving training to the young players in Quetta but after establishment of cricket academy Hanif Mohammad, Zaheer Abbas and Javed Miandad would also visit Quetta for coaching the local telnet.
However, the Chairman PCB expressed dissatisfaction over the standard of cricket in the province.
“Presently there is no player in Balochistan which could represent national side. But with increasing training facilities and proper coaching of the young players soon Balochistan would get representation in the national team”, he hoped