Pakistan implores Bangladesh to send ‘any’ team

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), desperate to bring back international cricket to the country, has urged Bangladesh to send 'any' team there.

PCB chief Shahryar Khan claimed on arrival on Eid day that the security situation in Pakistan had improved.

He is in Dhaka on a visit ‘to renew cordial and cooperative relations between Bangladesh and Pakistan on the cricket front’.

Khan’s recent predecessors, particularly Zaka Ashraf, have had a difficult time with the BCB after Bangladesh called off two proposed tours to Pakistan in 2012.

It led to the PCB withdrawing Pakistani cricketers for the second Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) in 2013. Since then the players were also not allowed to play in the Dhaka Premier League in which Pakistani players have been regulars since the 1980s.

“Even if the national team cannot come to Pakistan for security reasons, I would ask them to send a team to examine how things are, I want to start cricket between two countries,” Khan said.

“It can be at the level of A teams, Under-19s; send your schoolboys or the women's side. We want to start at every level with Bangladesh,” he said.

Pakistan have not hosted an international cricket match since gunmen attacked the Sri Lankan team bus in Lahore in March 2009, leaving eight people dead and wounding seven Sri Lankan players and an assistant coach.

Pakistan’s ‘home’ matches have since been played in venues ranging from the United Arab Emirates to England.

“My expectation is that we will sit down and work out something in the future, which will start up the relationship at whatever level is convenient to Bangladesh,” Khan added.