Pakistan set to lose money on England's first cricket tour of the country in 17 years

[MenInG]

So, is it worth it? You decide.

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Pakistan are set to lose money on England's first visit in 17 years with presidential-level security costing £4.4million alone.

However, such is the desire to make touring the country feel 'normal' again that the Pakistan Cricket Board were prepared to take the financial hit, just as they did in the spring when Australia were here for Test and white-ball series.

Pakistan were starved of hosting international matches for a decade following the ambush of the Sri Lanka team bus by terrorists in Lahore in 2009.

And now they have it back, the PCB and Pakistan government know they cannot afford any slip-ups, meaning the players have been given the same treatment usually reserved for heads of state.

England have hundreds of armed officers at their hotel and are followed everywhere by plain-clothed bodyguards.

The Pakistan and England teams travel in unison on training and match days, with snipers on buildings and soldiers lining central reservations en route.

Even the spider-cam above the National Stadium was taken down amid concerns that its overhead wires would prevent a helicopter landing in the middle of the playing area should an evacuation be necessary.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/s...ose-money-Englands-tour-country-17-years.html

 

[James]

It is an investment for the future, unfortunately might need to take the hit this time.

 

[Osama Shafeeqe]

The idea should be to have all the western nations tour at least once then slowly decrease the level of security provided but this amount of security is definitely required. Pakistan at the moment is politically and economically volatile. With the added resurgence of the Taliban in Pakistan, unfortunately it is at a very high risk of a terrorist attack.

 

[Savak]

This article only mentions the cost but not the income expected from the series via broadcast revenue (domestic and international), gate money, commercial sponsors e.t.c.

 

[Slim]

Dailytrash at it again. No revenues mentioned and making claims out of air. Even then its an investment so no issues.

 

[Savak]

The PCB claimed its profits from the Australian series was around $12 million even after taking into account the exorbitant Presidential security costs.

The PCB should get the same amount from this series if not more given that this is a 7 match T20 series.

 

[proud_pakistani]

Ofcourse its worth it. We have been playing all our home series in UAE which is way more expensive and doesnt really help the development of our cricket.

 

[ask_analyse_act]

If they are going to earn more money from the series and also the reputation back to successfully host nations.. then its completely worth it..

They are also given the host rights for 2025 CT for which these series against England, Newzealand and Australia are a crucial stepping stone to reach that mark..

Investment for the future

 

[Mamoon]

If Pakistan is safe to play cricket and everything is normal now, having such high level security should not be necessary.

This is where PCB and the fans lose credibility. Their actions do not go with the lies that come out of their mouths.

You can’t tell the foreign players thag Pakistan is a safe country now and then make it look like a war zone and have bodyguards accompany the players to the bathrooms.

 

[Abdullah Rabbani]

If Pakistan is safe to play cricket and everything is normal now, having such high level security should not be necessary.

This is where PCB and the fans lose credibility. Their actions do not go with the lies that come out of their mouths.

You can’t tell the foreign players thag Pakistan is a safe country now and then make it look like a war zone and have bodyguards accompany the players to the bathrooms.

Pakistan isn't safe as it was before 90's

 

[Ashmal]

As if PCB was making millions hosting these teams in UAE.

Rubbish article.

The presidential-level security would obviously be reduced gradually in next couple of years, as more and more teams tour and start to feel comfortable and confident about the security situation in Pakistan.

 

[gazza619]

Whose pocket does the £4.4m go into?

Our security agencies do know how to mint the situation. Those are very high rates when the labour is local.

 

[JaDed]

Whose pocket does the £4.4m go into?

Our security agencies do know how to mint the situation. Those are very high rates when the labour is local.

At least someone questioned the actual issue.

 

[MenInG]

PKR 13m which is approx. USD 67k was collected from gate receipts in the 1st T20I - all of these proceed will be donated to PM's flood relief fund.

 

[James]

PKR 13m which is approx. USD 67k was collected from gate receipts in the 1st T20I - all of these proceed will be donated to PM's flood relief fund.

Excellent gesture!

 

[shamaan]

PKR 13m which is approx. USD 67k was collected from gate receipts in the 1st T20I - all of these proceed will be donated to PM's flood relief fund.

That is excellent stuff .

 

[PakLFC]

Need to provide top security for the visitors that will be expensive. Hopefully as time passes we can begin to relax a bit on this issue. For now it's that or the touring time won't visit.

 

[Varun]

It's an investment for the future.

 

[kingusama92]

If Pakistan is safe to play cricket and everything is normal now, having such high level security should not be necessary.

This is where PCB and the fans lose credibility. Their actions do not go with the lies that come out of their mouths.

You can’t tell the foreign players thag Pakistan is a safe country now and then make it look like a war zone and have bodyguards accompany the players to the bathrooms.

If they do as you say, the teams won't come.

They can tell them it's safe. They can even believe it. But that doesn't matter unless the visitors believe it too and that's what this investment is about. It's about building that trust.

 

[MenInG]

een from the roof of Karachi’s National Stadium, the city stretches as far as you can see in all directions, up into the hills one way and out into the sea the other. Around 18 million people live here. Only the soldiers stand out. They are conspicuous in their black uniforms, as dark and numerous as the kites overhead, and as watchful, too.

The Pakistan Cricket Board has spent so much on the security for this tour it will not make money from it even with all the corporate sponsorship. It is a loss-leader for the country, meant to reassure the English that this is a safe place to visit, and the world that Pakistan is a safe place to do business.

England's Alex Hales guides the ball down to third man during his 53 in the first T20 international against Pakistan.

Before Tuesday’s T20 international you could pick out the three-man sniper teams stationed around the stadium, one on the roof of the Indus University, another on top of the huge billboard advertising Strawberryade, a third above an apartment block silhouetted by the setting sun. The Spidercam, which is supposed to provide aerial pictures for the TV feed, had been taken down overnight. The story went around that it was removed when the security team realised it would make it impossible for the army helicopter that follows the team to land on the outfield if needed for an emergency evacuation.

On the outfield, the England team were having their customary warm-up kickabout. It was as far as the players had been from their security detail all week. “Every time I go to the toilet, there’s somebody following me,” said Harry Brook. “I’ve never really had that before.”

The players were disconcerted by it at first and discussed the security situation in a team meeting. It was explained that the guards needed to stay within a few paces so they could intervene if anyone came up with a knife or gun. Which, like all of this, has the effect of making you at once feel more protected but somehow less safe. It magnifies your sense of threat, as if the lobby of their five-star hotel, which is filled with well-heeled businessmen drinking tea and well-to-do families attending weddings, was actually a den of potential assassins. Extraordinary lengths have been undertaken to make Karachi feel like an ordinary place to play cricket.

The rest of us have been able to do exactly that this week, too. Out there, Karachi is full of good things to eat and see and do. Everywhere you go people want to know how you are finding the city.

They ask whether you’re enjoying yourself and are anxious to know whether they can do any more for you. It’s a sign of the stigma they felt during those years in exile from international cricket and how wounding it must have been.

One day, international teams will be able to experience the country the way Moeen did. But for now, the PCB has no choice but to shutter them off from it. It has been seven years since Zimbabwe came to play two T20s – the first visit from a Test-playing nation since 2009 – but the last few months have been their most high-profile stretch of fixtures yet.

In March, Australia came for the first time in 24 years, England this month for the first time in 17, next January, New Zealand will come back to resume the series they abandoned in 2021 after their government received what was described as a credible threat to the team’s security.

In 2002, the New Zealand team were staying right here in this same corner of Karachi when a bomb went off outside their hotel. Their physio was injured by flying glass and the match was abandoned. Their captain, Stephen Fleming, spoke about how shocked he had been by the way the city (which had already endured a decade of sectarian violence) carried on with its business in the aftermath.

But this is another age. London is a victim too these days and it’s easy to forget that the 2005 Ashes and the 2017 Champions Trophy were played in England in the immediate aftermath of terrorist attacks in the city.

The PCB has to go above and beyond what seems normal because it cannot risk anything going wrong. And the reminders of what can go wrong are all around if you want to look for them. Ahsan Raza is standing as one of the umpires in this series. He still has the bullet scars in his chest from where he was hit during the 2009 terrorist attack on the Test in Lahore and will show them to you.

A raucous atmosphere welcomed the teams in the first T20, which went to the final over. Photograph: Alex Davidson/Getty Images
The country’s governing body has grand plans for the next few years. It is launching a Women’s Super League and is recruiting some high-profile investors, as well as a Pakistan Junior League, in which 66 under-19 players from around the world will take part in a T20 tournament in Lahore.

Some 175 foreign players have registered to be part of the draft for that, including 10 from England, such as the two leg-spinners Archie Lenham and Rehan Ahmed. The hope here is that it will be the first of many trips to Pakistan made by that generation of players and that over the years the PCB will be able to peel back those layers of security so that by the end of their fledgling careers, their country will be a destination like any other.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...ke-positions-pakistan-cricket-england-karachi

 

[PerfectionPersonified]

good investment for future

 

[MenInG]

You may have noticed that there are side-effects to watching England’s series against Pakistan. Some are obvious, like a nascent infatuation with Harry Brook’s inside-out drives. Others, though, are less so. You may experience a nagging urge to switch to Sensodyne toothpaste “because life’s too short for sensitive teeth”, drink Tapal Tea, “it makes teatime terrific”, or start using Osaka Tubular Deep Cycle Premium Batteries. You may even find yourself overcome with inexplicable curiosity about the latest Dawlance Power Wash Challenge, in which members of the public compete on rowing machines to win a washing machine.

It’s easy to snigger at all this, the intermittent cutaways to approved toothpaste users gleefully biting into ice lollies in the stands, and drinkers mugging for the cameras over a steaming cup of the Pakistan Cricket Board’s official tea in the little wooden pavilion by the boundary. To be honest the joke gets even better when you see how some of the commentators who are contractually obliged to deliver these spiels feel about doing it (“Always good to see Waqar,” Mark Butcher tweeted under a photo of the two of them, “here we are, cooking up some more ads for toothpaste.”) But there’s something quietly interesting going on behind all this commercialism.

The PCB is spending so much on the security arrangements for these seven games that it is losing money on the tour. According to the British High Commission’s latest information, Pakistan is safer than it has been at any point since 2004, but the only way the PCB can get international teams over here is by laying on VVIP protection, which involves thousands of soldiers, dozens of armoured cars, and a couple of helicopters. In Karachi, they had to shut the main roads to and from the local hospital so the team could get in and out of the ground, in Lahore they have closed off the entire city block around England’s hotel.

It will be similar when Ireland’s women’s team comes here in November, again for New Zealand’s men in December, and on and on into the future. There’s so much at stake that the PCB simply can’t afford not to pay what it costs. Any slip would be irrevocable.

And they have to find this money despite being at one obvious disadvantage to every other Test-playing nation. They are the only team in the world which doesn’t get the benefit of playing against India. It’s been a decade since their last bilateral series – since then, they’ve only met when they’ve been drawn against each other in international tournaments. Which, in cricket’s lopsided economy, is a little like trying to bat with one hand tied behind your back. The broadcast rights for series against India are so much more lucrative than anything else in the game that most boards rely on them to subsidise the costs of hosting all the other tours.

India’s 10-match tour of South Africa last winter, for instance, was worth £80m to the hosts. Financially, the fat years when India visit allow the board to survive the lean years when everyone else comes. It’s the same for everyone, even, to a lesser degree, Australia and England, who faced a £40m black hole in their finances when the fifth Test at Old Trafford was cancelled last year.

But Pakistan have to go without. And that’s only the beginning of the problem. Pakistan’s players have been frozen out of the Indian Premier League since its second season, and, as IPL teams buy up franchise sides in leagues around the world, they’re now being excluded from those competitions too. “It’s sad because they’re such good players they would only add to the standard of cricket,” said Moeen Ali, when he was asked about it this week. “I feel for them because they’re probably missing out, financially, on a lot of money.” Which puts its own pressures on the game here. The PCB is being buffeted by the same currents everyone else is trying to navigate.

One reason why the PCB is launching its new Junior League for under-19 players from around the world is because of the need to develop ways of generating income, just like the ECB did with the Hundred. And these anti-Pakistani policies will become a problem for the English board too, if, as is widely expected, it opens the competition up to private finance. At the moment, the evidence suggests that any money from India would come with unwritten stipulations about whether Pakistanis are allowed to play.

The PCB is understandably frustrated about the lack of any pushback against all this from the other Test-playing nations. There are clear moral arguments here, but the grim realpolitik of cricket means that, while they get plenty of sympathy, no one is about to start making demands on India on their behalf. England’s attempt to open negotiations about holding a series in Birmingham is as much as anyone has done yet. The hope is that holding the game on neutral ground would help defuse any tension. Getting the game played would certainly be a fillip for Test cricket.

The PCB’s preference is that the teams would be able to host any games themselves. And relations between the boards have improved since Ramiz Raja took over at the PCB, and Sourav Ganguly at the BCCI. They toured each other’s countries as players, and Raja, for one, believes from his own experiences that the majority of fans in both nations feel more warmly towards players from the other than the vicious bickering you see on social media suggests. But the decision about whether or not it will happen is being made at the higher levels than even those Ganguly moves in. There are signs things may be slowly improving there too. Anyone who loves the game, and who believes in its ability to bring people together, will hope the politicians hurry up about it.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/b...n-home-series-triumph-need-play-india-cricket