‘India influenced B’desh to cancel series against Pak’

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) informed their Pakistan counterparts on Wednesday that they could not host the Pakistan team because of security issues in their country and as their government had not given clearance for the series of five one-dayers and two Twenty20 matches.

The Pakistan team was due to tour Bangladesh from March 7 but just two days prior to their departure,the tour was postponed by the BCB,which had later asked for time to get clearance from their government.

Zia also came down hard on Bangladesh government and their BCB for being ungrateful to Pakistan by not coming to their aid in their time of need.

“I can only say the Bangladesh government and Cricket Board should have kept in mind how Pakistan has supported them and done for their cricket in the past,” he said.

“After all that we have done for them they have not repaid us in the same way. It is disappointing and sad,” he added.

The former PCB Chairman,who was active in the Kargil operation,however,felt that the government of Bangladesh should have realised how important it was for Pakistan to get some international cricket at this stage.

“We have done a lot for Bangladesh cricket and when I was Chairman the ICC was intent on stripping them of their Test status and I was the only person who spoke up for Bangladesh and Zimbabwe and garnered support from other members to stop them of being deprived of test status,” he said.

He pointed out that Pakistan was not one of those nations which made security an issue and they would have toured Bangladesh once given clearance by the host country no matter what the situation would have been there.

Zia agreed that the cancellation of the Bangladesh tour was a big setback for Pakistan cricket which was already reeling from the attack on the Sri Lankan team.

“Realistically speaking I don’t see any team coming to Pakistan at least for the next two years and we should concentrate on arranging our series at neutral venues and playing abroad,” he said.

Zia said the PCB also needed to formulate a parallel strategy to convince teams that the security situation was good enough for teams to tour Pakistan.

“Our cricket is in a crisis and we need to work hard to get out of this phase,” he said.