LAHORE: It is yet to be decided who (Pakistan or India) will host the cricket series in 2012 according to the new Future Tours Programme (FTP) of the International Cricket Council (ICC).
“In fact, we have to play four series against India in the FTP, which spreads from 2012 to 2020, but there is a question mark on the 2012 series as to who will host it,” Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) chief operating officer Subhan Ahmed told Dawn.
“Pakistan toured India in 2007 and they had to visit Pakistan in 2009 but they skipped the tour. Pakistan have to play as hosts in 2012 according to the reciprocal turn,” Subhan said.
“We discussed the future of 2012 series with BCCI officials during the ICC meetings in Hong Kong last month and they assured us that they would give us a reply after getting clearance from their government.
“As soon as they get clearance we will resume the talk to decide the number of matches and the venues,” he said.
But when reminded that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the occasion of the Indo-Pak World Cup semi-final in Mohali had announced that the Indian team would tour Pakistan, Subhan said the BCCI might need a written consent.
He said Pakistan could host India at any neutral venue due to their security concerns.
“We are already playing our home series at neutral venues due to security concerns of other teams. And we feel no problem in hosting India too at any neutral venue,” he said.
To a question about BCCI ignoring Pakistan players for the Indian Premier League and Champions League, Subhan said, in fact the solution to this problem was attached with the restoration of bilateral series between the two countries.
“Once the two countries come on the track to restore the bilateral series, these smaller issues will be solved automatically,” he added.
Subhan said the PCB had some sort of achievements in the last ICC meetings as it succeeded to gain two-year time to implement the no-government interference policy, approved through an amendment in the meetings.
He, however, said the PCB has agreed principally to have an elected chairman and now the constitutional changes would be made to have an electoral system.
Under the new policy, he said, the PCB chairman would be elected, and not nominated by anyone.
He said though the amendment asked for a free election of the chairman, which also meant that anybody could contest, another clause of the amendment also asked that the candidate should be a constituent member.
“There is some confusion which needs some clarity before making constitutional amendments to introduce the system to elect the chairman,” he said.
About the second proposed amendment, which is deferred till October and asks to elect the ICC president, changing the existing rotation policy, he said the PCB was in favour of the existing system.
He added that many countries were in line to get the chairmanship and changing the system at this time would be injustice with them.
To a question about the dissolution of the ICC Task Force on Pakistan, he said the PCB had introduced almost all the reforms proposed by it.
“The Task Force has now made some more suggestions to improve the working, especially the selection process, and to appoint a long-term manager with the national team instead of hiring series-to-series services of a person.”
Meanwhile, to a question Subhan admitted that no referee from Pakistan was on the ICC elite panel and the reasons for their absence were that the game’s governing body had changed the process.
“Recently, David Boon of Australia was inducted into the ICC elite panel after clearing all the process and though a couple of Pakistanis were also in the run they failed to clear the process,” he said.
He denied the impression that the PCB had thin representation in the ICC committees, saying the PCB chairman had a place in the audit committee out of four or five such committees.