Pakistan May Play Their Home Series in Sri Lanka

Unable to garner sufficient revenues, a beleaguered Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is mulling options to shift their base from the United Arab Emirates to Sri Lanka during their series against the West Indies, later this year.

According to a senior PCB official, the board has been unable to make any big profits from its "home series" held in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah since 2009 mainly due to the high expenses involved in organising these series in the Emirates, negligible gate money receipts and finding right sponsors.

The PCB has been forced to host its "home series" regularly in the UAE since terrorist attack on Sri Lankan team in Lahore in March, 2009, leading to Test teams refusing to tour the country citing serious security concerns.

Since 2009, the PCB has only hosted short limited over series at home against lowly ranked teams like Zimbabwe (last year in May), Kenya and Afghanistan.

But even before 2009 the PCB had hosted some of its "home series" against Australia and the West Indies in the UAE as they expressed security concerns about playing in Pakistan.

"We are discussing the matter within the board and we will also speak to other boards to study the feasibility of such a move but we are looking at moving our home series to Sri Lanka," the official confirmed.

He said that the Sri Lankan board had in the past been receptive when proposals were discussed for Pakistan to host their series there.

"They were receptive even when there was a chance we might host India in a short last January but the move didn't materialize," he said.

The official said the PCB had incurred expenses in millions on just paying the ground rent for the Pakistan Super League, which was launched last February in Dubai and Sharjah.

"There are options, main among them Sri Lanka and there is consensus the series against the West Indies could be moved from UAE," he added.