In a bid to resume international cricket in Pakistan, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has signed a three-year contract with a security firm.
The newly-appointed chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), Najam Sethi, has said that this is the ICC’s first step towards resumption of cricket in the country.
International cricket in the nation has become a distant dream for Pakistan in the wake of the 2009 terrorist attack on the touring Sri Lanka cricket team bus in Lahore.
“It’s a step by the ICC for the revival of international cricket in Pakistan. The company is based in three countries: the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the UAE, and has a good repute,” Sethi had said, as quoted by the Dawn.
Sethi added that the security company is expected to visit Pakistan in the last week of August or the first week of September.
“A representative of the Federation of International Cricketers (FICA) will accompany the security company to personally monitor the security situation in Lahore,” he said.
“It will be a four-day visit where the security company will work with the government of Punjab to get assurances that all the recommendations submitted by security experts of the different countries who visited Lahore to watch the final of the second Pakistan Super League (PSL) season have been incorporated by the government in its SOPs, or not,” he said.
Newly-appointed PCB chairman Najam Sethi.
The security firm will be visiting Pakistan annually to review the arrangements with the ICC paying them $400,000 for each such visit.
Meanwhile, preparations are on for the proposed ICC World XI series in the country.
The series was expected to be played at the end of September but has tentatively been pushed forward by two weeks due to the important by-elections to be held in Lahore on th 17th on the month.
The World XI series remains subject to security clearances and the visit of the security company in this regard will play a crucial role in deciding whether the planned series goes ahead.
In some good news for the PCB, the Sri Lankan Cricket board has agreed a deal in principal to play up to two T20 matches in Pakistan as part of the bilateral series to be contested between the two nations in the UAE next month.