The Pakistan Cricket Board on Tuesday saw a ray of light when it inked a deal worth USD 9 million with Dubai Sports City.
KARACHI: Grappling with financial woes following the teams' reluctance from touring the country owing to security reasons, the Pakistan Cricket Board on Tuesday saw a ray of light when it inked a deal worth USD 9 million with Dubai Sports City.
The deal will see Pakistan take on Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in a tri series next year.
"And then we play four Twenty20 matches in the next two years. We get paid USD 3 million each for the three-year assignment," a senior official of the Board said.
The Dubai Sports City is reported to be a brainchild of Abdul Rehman Bukhatir, who ran the successful one-day series and tournaments in Sharjah before they were discontinued in 2003.
The Board official said PCB would have earned around USD 2.75 million from hosting the Champions Trophy this month.
"It has not been a productive year for us financially because we were also expecting an income of around USD 6 million from hosting the Australians for a Test series in April. But that too has been postponed till 2009," he said.
The PCB, meanwhile, is planning to explore options given the security situation in Pakistan and growing reluctance of teams to play in the country.
One of the options, the official said, was to play more away series and at neutral venues as the Board needed to make money to avoid financial crisis.
Pakistan in the past had played Tests against the West Indies and Australia in Sharjah in 2002 following the refusal of both teams to tour Pakistan after 9/11.
The PCB also said it would have no objections to playing a two-Test series against the West Indies in Abu Dhabi immediately after they play a one-day series at the same venue from November 12-16.
The West Indies players had already raised reservations about playing the Test series in Pakistan.
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