Pakistan will tour India in 2016, says Shahryar Khan

PCB chairman believes security conditions much better in Pakistan for teams to visit

KARACHI: Pakistan cricket chief Shahryar Khan claimed that Pakistan will be touring India in the year 2016, reported indiatoday.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman while talking in an exclusive interview to Headline Today said that "Cricket has an important role in building relationships... and sports and politics should be kept separate."

He confirmed that India will visit Pakistan at their new home, the UAE, for a bilateral series in December 2015.

Furthermore, he talked about the MoU that has been signed between the PCB and the BCCI, according to which India and Pakistan are scheduled to play 12 Tests, 30 ODIs and 11 Twenty20s spread over six series in eight years.

When asked if India will visit Pakistan for a series in the near future, he said, "I hope so," he replied.

"Because things are getting better. Peshawar and Quetta are not good but the rest of Pakistan is pretty good.

"We have now got two or three venues – Karachi and Lahore – where we can seal the area around the stadium. The venues are very good, they are Test playing venues and you have living quarters next door which means all that the cricketers have to do is to take their kit bags and walk across under a tunnel.

"We have got this in Karachi and Lahore, and we want to do it in Multan and Faislabad. We will then have four venues where you can be absolutely 100 per cent sure that there will be no security threat. The danger is in the travel between the hotel and the stadium, this is what happened to the Sri Lankan team (in 2009)."

He also talked about how the bigger teams have asked to demonstrate safe playing conditions while hosting the associate teams so that they can dispose their faith towards visiting Pakistan.

"If you compare the security situation in the worst times of 2005 to 2008 it is much better now. The incidents of terrorist attacks have gone down and we can prove that. But sometimes you can get the odd. They are few and far between," said the PCB chief.

"At present we are not planning to host top teams like India, Australia, England. We already hosted Afghanistan. Netherlands was supposed to come and they will come a little later. Ireland and Scotland are keen. Nepal I hope would be coming next month. So these associate members are ready to come to Pakistan.

"This year we will see one or two other teams visiting Pakistan. The bigger teams have told us that you get these associate teams in Pakistan and demonstrate that the security situation is much better, we will also consider.

"We have teams like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh who have said that let them come first and we will follow later."