PCB downplays resumption of bilateral ties with ‘unreliable’ India

LAHORE (Monitoring Desk): The Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman (PCB) Ehsan Mani, in a podcast on Tuesday, downplayed the resumption of bilateral ties with India, while claiming that Pakistan kept cricket and politics separate.

Mani stressed that the PCB did not need a bilateral series with India in order to survive.

“India are unreliable, we can’t rely on cricket resuming with them anytime in the foreseeable future. If it happens, good. We face them in ICC events, that’s fine. We’re interested in cricket and we keep politics and cricket separate,” said Mani. “Not having India series costs us but we’re not thinking about that. As they say, it’s pie in the sky. If it’s not there, it’s not there. We have to live without them, but we don’t need them to survive.”

The last time India and Pakistan played a bilateral series was back in 2012 when the former hosted the Men in Green for a limited-overs series — which had two Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is) and three One-day International (ODIs). Mani claimed that the PCB would not make unusual cuts despite facing significant losses due to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“There’ll be no unusual cuts at PCB. Won’t make any PCB staff redundant. All retired international players will receive their pensions. No changes to domestic contracts. If anyone is in distress, they can contact PCB and we’ll go out of our way to help,” he said. “PCB has competitive home series in the upcoming seasons and doesn’t need to factor home series against India when negotiating future commercial rights deals.”

PCB not to fire employees or cut their salaries

LAHORE (APP): Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Ehsan Mani said on Tuesday that the Board was not considering to fire any of its employee or cut their salaries in the wake of partial lockdown, placed due to coronavirus pandemic in the country.

“Our top most priority is our employers and players and they are important to us as we are nothing without them and we ca not run our cricket system and allied activities,” he said here.

The PCB chief said that no proposal was under consideration to show any employee the door or cut down their salaries. “The PCB is in process of re-structuring and we will continue making changes in our organisational setup whenever a change is required to enforce in a specific department,” he added.

Ehsan Mani said the central contracts of the Pakistani cricketers will be maintained on the basis of performance based formula and no unusual change will be made in it. “Certainly we will be promoting and relegating players in different categories of their central contracts as it is linked with their performance and is a routine practice which is being done on the recommendations of the selection committee,” he said.

He said that despite the current crisis, the PCB would continue its efforts for safeguarding the interests of the national cricketers.

“The PCB is determined to fulfil its responsibilities and obligations and it will continue to support former cricketers by continuing their pensions as well as the contracts of the cricketers involved in domestic cricket tournaments,” said the PCB chairman, adding “We will also extend financial help to former national cricketers who are needy and some of them need healthcare and we will be lending them support the way we did in the past.”