ICC opens door for full India v Pakistan series in UAE next year

The prospect of regular series with India brought the PCB on board with revamp, reports Osman Samiuddin.

Indian played Pakistan in the Asia Cup on March 2, 2014. AFP

The last domino in the Big Three’s push for control of cricket all but fell last week in Dubai during board meetings of the International Cricket Council (ICC). The upshot could be a full series between India and Pakistan in the UAE in the winter of 2015.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) held out longest against the wide-ranging revamp of the international game instigated by the boards of India, Australia and England. Those structural changes to the governance and revenue distribution models of the game cede greater control and revenue to the three boards.

In January and February, the PCB refused to sign off on the resolutions that seek to implement the changes, the only board to do so. But the prospect of regular series with India, much as it ultimately did for every other dissenter, last week brought the PCB on board.

The board maintains its assent is conditional, based upon commitments to play against all full members, but especially India. The National understands that the PCB and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) have earmarked a number of gaps in the calendar over the next eight-year cycle (from 2015) in which series can potentially take place.

The PCB is waiting for official approval of the bilateral arrangements by a working group of the BCCI. That is expected to be announced this week and, potentially, it could see as many as six series between the rivals over the next eight years.

There had been talk of a short, limited-overs series between the two before the 2015 World Cup, but that is unlikely now, given the relatively tight schedules of both countries this year. Instead the first bilateral engagement is poised to be the winter of 2015.

The clause pertaining to the venue says that it will be played in the “UAE or any other mutually acceptable location”, The National understands.

A normalisation of ties with India has been a priority for the Pakistan board. The pair have not played a full series since the end of 2007, when Pakistan toured India. Terror attacks on Mumbai a year later, originating from Pakistan, put diplomatic ties on hold and forced the abandonment of India’s tour to Pakistan in January 2009.

That was one of two home series with India the PCB lost in their last five-year broadcast deal; it is estimated the projected loss of revenue for those two series was near US$80 million (Dh293.8m). Since then, the loss of Pakistan as a home venue – after the Lahore terror attacks on the Sri Lanka team in March 2009 – has increased the financial pressure.

Other than Zimbabwe, Pakistan are the only full-member side not to host or tour India since the end of 2007. It is the extended duration of that isolation, as well as the BCCI’s need to show that the new Future Tours Programme (FTP) is more workable than the last one, that might work in favour of an official seal of approval this week.

Also impacting on that decision will be the scheduling pressures on the BCCI in this new FTP, which is effectively the long-term calendar of world cricket. The previous FTP, though negotiated bilaterally between members, was administered by the ICC and minimum guarantees were in place for every nation to play the other home and away within a cycle.

Members are currently in the process of working out a new FTP, for 2015 through 2022, but the modus operandi after the revamp seems to have changed. Now, most members are first securing all their commitments with India over the next eight years before negotiating series and contests with each other.

Effectively, that means that until the BCCI has put in place its commitments over that period, much of the rest of the calendar for other commitments might not materialise so readily.

The PCB’s change in stance was increasingly inevitable. The board was in no position to continue being in opposition to changes that have now been approved by every member.

Najam Sethi, the PCB chairman, said after his return from the Dubai meetings that the board expects to earn an estimated Rs30 billion (around $310m) in the next eight years from various bilateral agreements: a bulk of that, it can be safely assumed, will be from engagements with India. The securing of series with India will, primarily, bump up any long-term broadcast contract Pakistan signs this year.

Follow us on twitter at @SprtNationalUAE