PCB sees “home” series against Australia as opportunity to overcome budget deficit – Cricket News Update
The http://www.senore.com/Cricket/United-Arab-Emirates-c3033 this August.
An official from the board confirmed that the governing body is hoping to earn a profit of approximately Rs 450 million from the series – the total amount of revenue generated is estimated to be about Rs 649 million, with the cost of hosting a series in the UAE expected to be around Rs 187 million.
The board revealed an alarming shortfall of 70 crore Pakistani rupees in its annual budget for 2011-12, announced at the governing council’s meeting earlier this month. The financial crunch owes mostly to the team’s inability to host matches on home soil, after a terrorist attack on the touring Sri Lankan team in Lahore during 2009 brought the security situation of the country into question.
Since then, the PCB has been forced to organise home series in neutral venues abroad, such as the UAE, and the extra expenditures have caused the board’s budgets to be in red for the past two fiscal years.
However, the upcoming series against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 has been identified by the board as a means of overcoming the shortfall, though negotiations have hit a snag regarding the match schedule.
The series was initially expected to include 3 ODIs and 3 T20s, but Cricket Australia expressed reservations regarding the heat in the region during late August/early September – the time period chalked out for the proposed series.
Owing to the board’s hesitation, the PCB requested the ICC to bend the rule regarding T20 series – the world governing body does not allow T20 series to include more than 3 matches, but the PCB managed to obtain permission for a 6-match series, owing to the special circumstances.
However, the PCB is currently considering reverting to the original plan for 3 ODIs and 3 T20s for the sake of profit (which will automatically be increased if the series includes both formats), although the schedule is yet to be finalised.
“We have started work on a series of ODIs and T20 matches even though the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/ICC-World-Cup-2011-c100625 at its meeting in Kuala Lumpur gave approval for having a six match T20 series,” said the board official.
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