Mani admits PCB’s stance was weak

Board chairman believes ICC members should try to resolve issues with mutual understanding

KARACHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Ehsan Mani has admitted that the board lacked conclusive documents in compensation case against the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

The PCB lost its legal battle against the BCCI in front of the Dispute Resolution Committee (DRC) formed by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for the compensation case worth of $70 million USD for not honouring the alleged Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

According to the MoU, which was signed at the time of the formation of ‘Big Three’ in 2014, both arch-rivals were due to play six bilateral series between 2015-2023, four of which were supposed to be hosted by Pakistan.

But not a single series was materialised as the BCCI claimed that they’ve not received clearance from the federal government, due to which PCB filed the compensation case in front of the ICC.

Talking exclusively to Cricket Pakistan, Mani admitted that PCB’s stance in the case was weak. “Documents which PCB had were not conclusive due to which, the Disputes Resolutions Committee (DRC) gave its judgment in favour of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI),” said Mani.  “The panel said it was a moral agreement between that two cricket boards and India should have played, but was not legally binding agreement.”

Mani — who had the experience of working with ICC as the president — believes the governing body members should not go towards litigation and instead they sought out the matter with mutual understandings.

“I was against the case from day one,” he said. “But when I took the charge as PCB chairman, the proceedings of the case were almost over and we were on the weaker side so there was no option left we had to pursue it. I was told that before the decision was made regarding taking BCCI to the court over the matter, the board consulted leading legal experts from England’s Queen's Counsel and they gave green signal for the case. But I believe in any litigation, there is all ways a risk.”

Commenting on BCCI’s ultimatum of filing expenses recovery claim, Mani said if PCB had won the case, they would have done that same. “Obviously, BCCI will file a claim against us for the recovery of their expenses as we would have done the same if the result was in our favour,” he added.

Talking about the future of the Indo-Pak cricketing ties, Mani said PCB will talk to their Indian counterpart on equal terms. “We will talk about cricket but on equal ground,” Mani concluded.