PCB won't follow PHF, against boycotting cricket ties with India

Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Shaharyar Khan has refused to follow in the footsteps of Pakistan Hockey Federation which announced this week that it would boycott future international events in India.

PHF secretary Shahbaz Ahmad has said that in order to register its protest with the International Hockey Federation (FIH) for dropping Pakistan from the Junior World Cup in India this month, it would not take part in any competition in India.

But Khan, a career diplomat, made it clear that the PCB would not follow in the footsteps of the PHF in announcing any boycott of ties with India in India.

"Look, we will not take any such decision because it will be unfair to millions of people who want to watch Indo-Pak matches. Secondly, whenever we play against each other it means big financial benefits for the Boards and players and any boycott will only hurt us financially," said Khan who had earlier made threats of boycotting India in ICC events.

"By boycotting matches with India, we will only hurt ourselves," he said.

Khan said Pakistan was looking forward to having constructive discussions with the BCCI officials later this month during the Asian Cricket Council meeting in Colombo.

Khan said the next meeting of the ICC had already been moved to Dubai from Mumbai due to the strained relations between Pakistan and India.

Earlier, PHF secretary Ahmad said the national hockey body has asked the FIH to form an independent panel to look into the whole issue which led to the ouster of Pakistan from the Junior World Cup in Lucknow.

"In future we will not send our teams to India for any competition. The way we were dumped from the Junior World Cup has damaged our hockey as the tournament was important for us to prepare new players for our senior team," Ahmad said.

"It was the responsibility of the FIH to ensure we got visas. We are boycotting all events in India. They say we did not confirm our participation in time and made hotel bookings.

The fact is we were waiting for the visas and secondly the hotel asks us for a non-refundable deposit of four million Indian rupees which we could not afford given our financial status. We were not in a position to deposit such a big amount without being sure if we will get the visas," Ahmad said.

India is due to host the hockey Asia Cup and FIH World Cup in 2017 and 2018.

Image: Shaharyar Khan

Photograph: Getty Images