No International tour in the foreseeable future, Ijaz Butt
The Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board Ijaz Butt has resigned to the fact that there would be no international tours in the foreseeable future to Pakistan after the recent spate of controversies derailed the efforts of bringing
back top class cricket to the country.
According to the former Test cricketer the ongoing spot and match fixing controversies followed by his own confrontation with the English cricket Board and ICC has put a dampener on the process of attracting foreign teams to Pakistan.
The major reason according to Ijaz is the diversion of resources away from organizing tours to Pakistan, and focusing on repairing the damage done to the reputation of the game in the country.
There was precious time wasted on this and hence no space left in the calendar to accommodate a visiting team.
"The ICC Task Force was well on its way to bringing a MCC XI team to Pakistan in which two players of each cricket board were to be included", Butt said. "Moreover, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Zimbabwe-c3045 was also interested in sending their national team to Pakistan.
The current spot-fixing scam, however, has diverted attention to other issues as work of inviting some teams to Pakistan could not be materialized, and there is no appropriate time left for such activities due to the hectic schedule of Pakistan till the World
Cup".
Ijaz Butt added that the Chairman of ICC's Pakistan Task Force, Giles Clarke, had called for Pakistan to resume hosting international matches earlier in the year besides suggesting that an ICC World XI should tour the country "in due
course".
Only weeks after the PCB Chairman and his team was caught in the spot fixing controversy that totally derailed the effort and the final nail in the coffin was nailed by Ijaz Butt himself, who claimed that the English team was also
involved in match fixing and deliberately lost the third ODI against Pakistan at The Oval.
The allegations stunned the World of cricket and the ECB and Giles http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Clarke-c51120 were left fuming, they called for an immediate and unconditional apology from Butt. He faced the wrath of the ICC also, who threatened to send him packing from
the post of ICC Director if he did not take back his words.
After deliberations Butt went over to England for clarifying his stance and apologized for his remarks, the ECB accepted the apology and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ijaz-Butt-c64128 saved his post at the ICC by the skin of his teeth.
After this the ICC gave Pakistan a working paper according to which they were to run the game in their country, a 30 day ultimatum was handed over to PCB for fixing their problems and introducing an anti-corruption code in the domestic
cricket set-up.
Failure of adoption of the guide line could result in sanctions against the PCB, in this scenario the question of international cricket returning to Pakistan was not raised in any of the meetings with the main focus on resurrecting
the game.
Butt is hopeful that once the controversy dies down he would be in a position to ask the ICC to send a World XI to http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755, which would compromise of players from all leading Test playing nations.
The tour cannot take place in the foreseeable future as teams from around the World including Pakistan are focusing on the World Cup and preparing for the biggest event in ODI cricket that is set to take place from February next year.
The realistic time frame for the tour is any time after the World Cup which ends in April. However, the PCB would have to hope that they stay on track and improve their relations with the governing body of the game further.
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