India's Refusal to Play Pakistan Cost PCB $200 Million

Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Shahryar Khan claimed on Monday that the body suffered losses of around $200 million due to India's refusal to play Pakistan in a bilateral series. Khan said that PCB would start legal proceedings against the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) after the confirmation of the draft constitution of the International Cricket Council (ICC), which is expected to take place in April later this year. He added that he had also informed the same to the BCCI representative at a recent ICC meeting.

"I informed the BCCI representative at the ICC meeting recently that PCB had incurred losses of around $200 million because of India's refusal to play us and these losses were mounting as the BCCI was not even honouring a legal agreement to play bilateral series between 2015 and 2023," Khan told reporters in Lahore.

"The new draft constitution has a clause for a disputes resolution committee and once the constitution is final we intend to take our case against the BCCI first to this committee," he added.

Khan said the BCCI representative had told him in the ICC meeting that the Indian board was willing to play with Pakistan but could not do this without first getting government clearance.

Khan said the BCCI official had said that because of government non-clearance, they saw the MoU not applicable as 'Force Majeure'.

"I told him that they should have thought about their government before signing the MoU which is a legal agreement as per our lawyers," he said.

"I told him that India had denied us two home series, the losses of which were around $200 million," Khan added.

India has not played any bilateral cricket with Pakistan since 2007 although in the winter of 2012/13, Pakistan made a short goodwill tour to India to play a couple of limited over games.

The PCB chief also said that even after the termination of the 'Big Three' system of governance and financial model, India would end up getting the biggest share from ICC earnings.

"Even under the new draft constitution India gets around 16 percent share of all ICC earnings which is higher compared to other boards. Under the Big Three formula India, Australia and England were taking home more than 50 percent of the revenues with other boards getting far less," Khan said.

"It was not an equitable system of revenue distribution and we only agreed to it because India agreed to sign the MoU and play six bilateral series with us which would have allowed us to get financially stronger."

Khan said while Pakistan led the move to end the 'Big Three' governance system and got 10 votes in support, India as expected opposed the move.

"Their representatives appointed by the Lodha Committee asked for the matter to be deferred to the next ICC meeting in April, but we pushed through the draft constitution which should be ratified in April after all Boards give their views on it and enforced by June," he said.

(With inputs from PTI)