Where should Pakistan host their home games? UAE or elsewhere?

[Hamad_H]

As we know, Pakistan cannot play international cricket in Pakistan due to the security issues so where is the next best place. UAE is where we have played and dominated Tests for the past few years but it is too expensive and the PCB want money from the ICC to fund it.
After watching the Old Trafford T20, I think England is a good idea for Pakistan. There is one issue though, England play their home games in England and always have cricket in the summer using Lords, Oval, Edgbaston etc. I think Pakistan should play on the grounds that do not host international cricket or much international cricket in England because it'll be cheaper and Pakistan could negotiate a deal on tickets with the ECB. Also these Counties are currently financially struggling like Northamptonshire and it will definitely help them so both sides are getting a good deal because as we've seen, Pakistan tickets sell fast. English weather is a problem but we can play in England in the summer and possibly UAE or another country in winter/autumn.

 

[fazleefridi]

At Chennai...

 

[Haroon786]

Mumbai.

 

[Bhaag Viru Bhaag]

Should continue playing in the UAE.

 

[#GreenRoars]

UAE is better.

 

[marlonbrowndo]

UAE is an awful place to play cricket. Embarrassing crowds and atmosphere in Test cricket. Fans only really show up in T20s.

 

[Haroon786]

UAE is better.

Mumbai is better.

 

[Bilal7]

You realize we're unbeaten in the UAE for a decade, right? Why would you want to change that?

 

[GoUgandaCranes]

Cananda and USA.
Ireland.
Norway and Sweden.

 

[proud_pakistani]

I am happy they play in UAE as I live there but they need to prepare better pitches for the ODIs. The pitches dont bring attractive cricket.

 

[HBNS]

England of course! They will have more support from their fans, also it can help them showcase to the counties and improve their game. It will also (hopefully) help them improve their English, as unfortunately, some of the players still do not understand what the question is at press conferences/end of game ceremonies.

 

[LowKiiSavage]

Uae.

 

[Ahson8]

UAE for tests, anywhere else for LOI's.

 

[Junaids]

This answer is for Tests only.

Split the hosting between:

1) South African secondary centres when hosting Asian teams
- play in East London, Benoni, Potchefstroom and Bloemfontein
- host Bangladesh and Sri Lanka there, and Zimbabwe too.
- this will ensure that your batsmen and bowlers are always competent outside Asian conditions.

2) English cities with large Pakistani populations for certain series
- play at The Oval, Old Trafford and Headingley
- host South Africa, West Indies and India at these venues.
- this will mean playing Tests in England every summer - because you play against England away there too - so you should be better in the conditions than your opponents.

3) Host Australia, England and New Zealand in the UAE
- to take them out of their comfort zones.

A typical 4 year Test cycle could look like this:

Year 1:
New Zealand away
England away
Bangladesh home (in South Africa), followed immediately by
South Africa away

Year 2:
West Indies away
India home (in England)
Sri Lanka home (in South Africa)

Year 3
Bangladesh away
West Indies home (in England) followed immediately by
England away (still in England)
Australia home (in UAE)
New Zealand home (in UAE)

Year 4:
India away
South Africa home (in England)
Zimbabwe home (in South Africa)
Australia away

 

[Convict]

This answer is for Tests only.

Split the hosting between:

1) South African secondary centres when hosting Asian teams
- play in East London, Benoni, Potchefstroom and Bloemfontein
- host Bangladesh and Sri Lanka there, and Zimbabwe too.
- this will ensure that your batsmen and bowlers are always competent outside Asian conditions.

2) English cities with large Pakistani populations for certain series
- play at The Oval, Old Trafford and Headingley
- host South Africa, West Indies and India at these venues.
- this will mean playing Tests in England every summer - because you play against England away there too - so you should be better in the conditions than your opponents.

3) Host Australia, England and New Zealand in the UAE
- to take them out of their comfort zones.

A typical 4 year Test cycle could look like this:

Year 1:
New Zealand away
England away
Bangladesh home (in South Africa), followed immediately by
South Africa away

Year 2:
West Indies away
India home (in England)
Sri Lanka home (in South Africa)

Year 3
Bangladesh away
West Indies home (in England) followed immediately by
England away (still in England)
Australia home (in UAE)
New Zealand home (in UAE)

Year 4:
India away
South Africa home (in England)
Zimbabwe home (in South Africa)
Australia away

I think even the BCCI would struggle to boss around the other boards like that

 

[Junaids]

I think even the BCCI would struggle to boss around the other boards like that

Well, as I've flagged in the thread in which you're arguing with [MENTION=76058]cricketjoshila[/MENTION], I'd like to see the ICC sell all bilateral rights collectively, with India getting 51% of the proceeds, and with a centralised rather than bilaterally planned Future Tours Programme.

As soon as the BCCI is assured a vast but fixed percentage of all global TV revenue, their incentive to demand bilateral scheduling vanishes, and they will agree to what everyone else wants, which is centralised Future Tours.

 

[Markhor]

I'm OK with UAE but they need to make the pitches more sporting. Pitches with minimal lateral movement and minimal bounce means batsmen will be ill-equipped when faced with testing conditions outside Asia.

 

[hadi123]

They should do their best to get ODI's and T20s in Pakistan.Tests can stay in UAE for the forseeable future.

 

[Prince of Pakistan]

I don't mind limited overs games in the UAE. At times they are good low scoring encounters.

But tests in the UAE are horrible. Usually dead till the end when it suddenly starts to spin.
I am afraid they can not make better wickets there because of the surface.
Ideally the matches should be in the UK, but the PCB can only afford SL, Bangla or Ind.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Chokli]

Should UAE still be our home away from home?

regardless of the result of the on-going match, we've batted better in this chase than we've ever batting second in the uae, in any chase.

usually when we chased in the uae, it took a special innings to take us over the line and the match usually looked lost, we never looked like we were in contention of winning until the special happened.

kamran in 2008 versus west indies

kamran in 2009 116 versus australia

razzaq in 2010 versus south africa

malik in 2018 versus afghanistan

we need to move away from the uae and never return

our players seem much more composed and confident here than they do in ODIs in the UAE... you have 10 years worth of matches to back that statement up.

 

[Chokli]

slow uae like pitch in the 2nd odi and our boys struggled

 

[GoUgandaCranes]

Test cricket in UAE could be used as a means of punishment in modern prisons. That's how dour and boring it is.

There are exceptions to the norm, and yes some matches become alive in the last few sessions but honestly, that is downright the inability of Pakistan to dominate any team in any sort of conditions.

Consider the series agains NZL which can go down as a very happening series, the first test was totally botched in the first innings of batting, and then totally mishandled in the second to make it an exciting loss what should have been a comfortable win.

The third was the same which followed similar pattern where brain-fades and pressure led to a series loss which could have been a tame and simple draw. None of the wickets fell to spitting abnormal balls. just routine balls and mental explosions.

The turn is slow, outfields boring, fans zero. Even ODI cricket besides Sharjah is absolutely dull with no atmosphere and some of the worst wickets to ever exist in the entire cricketing universe.

That said, what are the alternatives for us?

Moving cricket back to Pakistan is impossible as of now and may well be for the forseeable future. We should understand that even if times become better, we as a country are always on the precipice of destruction and one nudge and we fall in total abyss of mayhem.

Moving to England - ECB has a product of its own and no one likes competition. That said, when we moved there, our elite players committed elite dishonesty and were dumb enough to get caught. Safe to say, we are never moving back there.

Move to Malaysia, Qatar, Bermuda etc. are all basically pipe dreams. Same problems, one or two stadiums at max, very limited cricketing interest and non long-term solution. Nepal can be tried, and should be tried but that place would never be as no one has such a vision or forward thinking in our cricketing ranks. I feel these are the kind of opportunities that should be explored instead of creating cricketing committees and finding out reasons why we lost in RSA. A bubbling cricket nation would love to see us play a series against Australia for three matches (if the Aussies agree ofc). Who cares for the results, it's not as if we are world beaters in UAE anyway but the larger picture offers so much benefit to us.

Srilanka and Bangladesh are places where we can go and have gone but again, test cricket in Lanka isn't that big of a deal and we have absolutely minus million goodwill when it comes to Bangladeshi cricket administration and political leadership. India is a no go otherwise Greater Noida would be such a nice place if not Mohali and it would be such an ice breaker for the two countries but the wall of hate there is higher than Himalaya.

There's not much in terms of options that is left but no matter what, we need to move on from the Dubai Cricket Stadium. Maybe we can buy a ground in China in Urumqi, or maybe just use Sharjah as the sole venue, or even the ICC cricket academy ground to at least lower the administration cost of test cricket in UAE.

Something has to be done, not exactly sure what but we need to try as many alternatives as possible. UAE is just killing our cricket.

 

[Markhor]

Won't some of our problems be solved by injecting more life into UAE pitches ?

UAE is home to the ICC Academy. I'm not expecting Trent Bridge style seamers in the desert but there must be a way to change the soil content to improve the pace and bounce of the surfaces.

 

[asadee]

We will not improve as a team until cricket is brought back to Pakistan. Posters like Mamoo and others enjoy when Pakistan loses but don't realize that this decline is in the context of a team not playing at home regularly for almost 10 years now

 

[lahoriyah1234]

Should PCB adopt South Africa as a neutral venue?

Regarding what has happened in the last 1 week. If PCB can overcome this unprofessional attempt to protect their tained Captain of the National Team for the racist remarks.

1. I think PCB should consider SA as a neutral venue for the home series. Its a perfect place to play cricket and it will be a great boost to Pakistan team batsmen who are struggling to become good batsmen, as UAE is destroying Pak Batsmen technique and leaving so many flaws in their technique when they come to tour such Aus, SA and NZL.

What you think guys? Can this happened or a possibility we can play our Test Cricket Series here.

 

[Sir Alex]

Not sure it would be a practical solution given that SA cricketing season is a short one like of Aus.

The home board wouldn't want the situation where their cricketing revenues (attendances) face competition from parallel international matches being held.

Issue of distance from home country. Travel costs will go through the roof as well as accommodation costs (although latter would be still comparable to high costs in UAE).

Players will also feel more 'away' from home. This will have a detrimental effect on upcoming players who have to completely 'unlearn' and 'relearn' their trades. Adapting is one thing bit making a complete overhaul is another.

Questions as to controlling pitch making and TV rights.

 

[ABMiller]

The heading should be will CSA allow Pakistan to play their home matches in South Africa ?

 

[Arham_PakFan]

No way.

South Africa is too far from Pakistan for that to happen. Time difference will also be an issue.

Travel costs, accommodation etc will be higher.

 

[MenInG]

Some posters under the impression that other countries waiting around for Pakistan to ask if they can play there! Get over it! We are lucky that UAE lets play there due to old relationships - other boards will not have time to free their grounds for our team.

 

[ABMiller]

Exactly. And also PCB should be very careful in moving the full PSL to pakistan. Once Pak leaves UAE, it may not be able to come back if the need arises. They should take that risk onlw when they are fully confident in Pakistan's security situations.

 

[topspin]

Some posters under the impression that other countries waiting around for Pakistan to ask if they can play there! Get over it! We are lucky that UAE lets play there due to old relationships - other boards will not have time to free their grounds for our team.

True but it's expensive.