Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif put together a committee that will meet on Thursday to decide if Pakistan will go to the World Cup in India. The committee is led by Bilawal Bhutto. There are no signs that the committee will take a hard line against the World Cup, but it could ask for permission to do a security check in India before letting Babar Azam’s team play in the tournament from October 5 to November 19.
The group, which is led by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, is likely to ask the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the hosts, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), to let a security delegation visit the places where the Pakistan team will play.
“The World Cup participation will be decided at a high-profile meeting,” a top PCB official told Cricbuzz on Tuesday night, without giving more information. Sports Minister Ahsan Mazari, Maryam Aurangzeb, Asad Mahmood, Amin ul Haq, Qamar Zaman Kaira, and former diplomat Tariq Fatmi are all on the group.
Even though the World Cup schedule hasn’t been released yet, sources in the PCB say that the BCCI has told the PCB that a couple of its team’s games, including the big one against India, could be moved around. Information that hasn’t been confirmed says that the India-Pakistan game could be moved to a date before October 14, and not necessarily to that date. The other thing that could change is their game against the Netherlands, which is currently set to take place in Hyderabad on October 6. The game between Pakistan and Sri Lanka on October 12 may not change. As BCCI secretary Jay Shah has already said, the sites will stay the same.
Sources from the BCCI and the ICC say that the final schedule should be out this week and that the dates of four to six games could change. This week, we should also know when tickets will go on sale, and Paytm Insider should get the license to sell seats online.
