$1 Million - The Price To End Pakistan's Cricket Isolation - 18-05-2015

$1 million — the price to end Pakistan's cricket isolation
LAHORE: The last time a Test-level cricket team visited Pakistan, seven Sri Lankan players
went home with bullet and shrapnel wounds after RPG and machine gun-wielding militants
ambushed their team bus in Lahore.
Six years on and under high security involving 3,000 police and blanket aerial surveillance, the same city will host
African minnows Zimbabwe from Tuesday for a short series that Pakistan hopes will help end its sporting isolation.
Forced to host home games in neutral venues like the United Arab Emirates, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB)
estimates it has lost $120 million in TV rights and extra overheads.
Even hosting Zimbabwe will cost PCB more than $1 million, half of which is for the visitors’ fees and expenses. Not
much of the outlay will be recouped by sponsorships and gate proceeds.
With top nations refusing to visit through fears of militant attacks, it’s been a long time in the wilderness for the
cricket-mad country and its players, fans and administrators.
Read: Touring Pakistan is a noble effort by Zimbabwe, says Ramiz Raja

Risks remain high and the massacre of 45 minority Shiites in an attack on a bus in Karachi last week nearly
prompted Zimbabwe to pull out at the last minute.
Even when they take the field from Friday, it will be without International Cricket Council umpires after the world
body decided not to send match officials because of security concerns.
However, excitement is building as international cricket returns, even in a small way with the two Twenty20 and
three one-day matches against unglamorous Zimbabwe.
Large banners featuring fast bowler Wahab Riaz – one of the few bright spots from Pakistan’s mediocre World Cup
campaign – festoon roadsides across Lahore.
“The last six years were unbearable,” Test captain Misbah-ul-Haq told AFP.
“Our grounds were left deserted, fans were deprived and a new generation of players lost a chance of playing on
home conditions before their own people.”
While the March 2009 attack on the Sri Lankans, which left six police and two civilians dead, forced the long
hiatus, it wasn’t the first time a cricket team had been caught up in Pakistan’s militant violence.
In 2002, 14 people died in a suicide blast outside a Karachi hotel as New Zealand and Pakistan prepared to leave
for the second Test, prompting the tour to be abandoned.
The PCB now says it has “foolproof” security involving thousands of police to protect Zimbabwe as they shuttle
between their five-star hotel and Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium.
The area around the venue will be cordoned off, with various security checkpoints for fans, and paramilitaries will
watch the area around the clock with constant surveillance from rooftops and helicopters.
Read: ICC refuses to deploy match officials for Zimbabwe series

The players will not be allowed to leave their hotel without security and their movements will be restricted within
the stadium.
$1 million — the price to end Pakistan's cricket isolation
“It is our first step towards the goal of reviving international cricket and we will leave nothing to chance to make
this tour safe and successful,” PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan told AFP.
Nevertheless, it will be a long time before cricket returns to normal in Pakistan, still battling Taliban and Al Qaeda-
linked insurgents who have claimed tens of thousands of civilian lives.
“It took one attack to stop international cricket in Pakistan, but it will take a few attack-free tours to bring it back
fully,” Osman Samiuddin wrote in a column for the ESPNcricinfo.com website.
For players like Umar Akmal, Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq – all of whom have played more than 50 internationals –
it will be their first chance to represent Pakistan at home.
Tickets are not yet sold out, given the uncertainty surrounding whether the tour would go ahead, but officials are
reporting a surge in demand.
“I am going to all matches,” said Salman Ahmed from the town of Gaggu Mundi. “I last watched a match was in
Multan in 2008, so it has been a long time now.”
Pakistan v Zimbabwe tour itinerary (all games at Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore)
May 22 – first T20

May 24 – second T20
May 26 – first ODI
May 29 – second ODI
May 31 – third ODI

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$1 million — the price to end Pakistan's cricket isolation

Read: Touring Pakistan is a noble effort by Zimbabwe, says Ramiz Raja

Read: ICC refuses to deploy match officials for Zimbabwe series

Pakistan v Zimbabwe tour itinerary (all games at Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore)

May 22 – first T20

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