India was to play against Pakistan in a bilateral series in the UAE which was to be hosted by Pakistan. But apparently Shashank Manohar, the president of BCCI called up his Pakistani counterpart Shaharyar Khan and gave him a formal and official invitation to play the “home” series in India instead of the UAE.
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“Shashank Manohar called me up on Friday evening and told me they have got clearance from their government to play against us. But he said they wanted to play the series in India and not in the UAE,” Shaharyar said to the media in Lahore.
“Manohar also said that the Indian board would provide the best security to our team and schedule the matches in places like Mohali and Kolkata where there is no problem at playing an Indo-Pak match,” he added. “Thirdly he said that the Indian board would devise a formula to ensure that we don’t suffer any loss of revenues for playing our home series in India,” he said.
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Shaharyar Khan however informed Shashank Manohar that he would still like the series to be played in the UAE due to various critical reasons. First of all there is the issue of security with the players playing in India and secondly BCCI has signed an MOU with the PCB and ICC that the event will be held in UAE and hosted by Pakistan and the PCB wants the BCCI to honor that. UAE being a neutral location should not pose any threat to either of the teams and hence seems like the best option.
Also there is the $50 million which PCB gets to earn by hosting the series themselves. “Why should we play our home series in India and not in UAE which is stated in the MOU and there is the matter of security for our team and plus the nearly $50 million that we expect to earn from hosting the series. I told Manohar how we can play in India when there are so much anti-Pakistan sentiments there by some of their groups. We have played our last two series in India and I think it is time we now got to host the series,” Shaharyar said.
Shaharyar Khan said that he is not an authorized personality to take a decision on this and this proposal will be discussed by the board of governors and then a decision would be taken. “But more importantly I have to first also seek clearance from the Prime Minister for any decision we take. At the moment I have told the Indian cricket chief to send us a detailed proposal in writing,” he said.
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On the other hand Najam Sethi, the chairman of PCB’s executive committee has a given a statement, “In my personal opinion we should not go to India as it is our home series and the BCCI should honor the MOU they signed with us which states Pakistan will host this series.”
Najam Sethi when was the Board Chairman last year, PCB and BCCI signed an MOU stating the countries will be playing 6 bilateral series in the period of 2015 and 2023, the first of which is in December and will be hosted by Pakistan in the UAE.
rounak