RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Cricket Board Chief sends a clear message to the WorldCricketing Nations desiring to play against Pakistan.
Pakistan will no longer look for neutral venues to stage home internationalcricket matches.“The onus will be on the other teams to tell us why they can’t play inPakistan,” Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ehsan Mani told the AssociatedPress on Tuesday.“Our default position will remain that Pakistan is safe. We play cricket inPakistan (and if) you want to play against Pakistan you have to come toPakistan.”Pakistan’s decade-long isolation from hosting test cricket ends onWednesday when Sri Lanka will play at Pindi Cricket Stadium. The secondtest will be in Karachi from Dec. 19-23. The series is part of the worldtest championship.Sri Lanka was the last team to play a test in Pakistan in 2009. Terroristsattacked the team’s bus in Lahore and eight people were killed.
Several Sri Lanka players and team officials were injured. The ambush shutthe door on international cricket in Pakistan. The PCB organized almost allof its home matches in the United Arab Emirates.In the last four years, the PCB staged short limited-overs tours againstthe likes of Zimbabwe, the West Indies, Sri Lanka and a World XI to showthe cricket world it could host tours safely. Sri Lanka agreed to play twotest matches in Pakistan only after it visited Karachi and Lahore threemonths ago and played an incident-free series of one-day internationals andTwenty20s.
