Stop investing in bilateral series against India: Miandad urges PCB

Legendary cricketer and former cricket coach Javed Miandad has called on the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to stop bothering about reviving bilateral cricketing ties with arch-rivals India and instead focus on improving the game at domestic level.

According to the Dawn, the PCB said that they would file a case against the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for failing to honour the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the two cricket boards in 2014.

Meanwhile, the country's cricket board has also hired a British law firm to represent the PCB's case and ask for the compensation claim with the committee.

 

However, Miandad insisted that the PCB could raise the standard of cricket in the country by investing on their domestic circuit rather than playing bilateral series against India.

"I believe we can raise standard of our game by investing on domestic cricket rather than playing against India. We've broken the jinx by defeating them in ICC Champions Trophy final and I'm sure we'll continue repeating that in future provided we pay attention on the domestic cricket. Other cricketing nations are focusing on that and we should not remain behind on that front," Miandad said.

Miandad, on the other hand, also urged the newly-appointed PCB chairman Najam Sethi to hire former or first-class cricketers as presidents of associations and zones in order to improve the game in the country.

"He must also improve his advisory board and call for cricketers like Majid Khan who can provide helping hand in improving domestic cricket," he added.

While the BCCI has repeatedly snubbed Pakistan's request for resumption of ties, the PCB wants the Indian cricket board to honour its commitment of six series between 2015-2023 under the MoU signed, which is subjected to clearance from the Government of India.

Despite not playing a full-fledged bilateral series against Pakistan since the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, the arch-rivals have played each other a number of times in the ICC events, with the most recent coming at the 2016 ICC T20 World Cup. Although, Pakistan toured India for a short series in December 2012.