Pakistan's proposed tour to South Africa scrapped

The PCB crisis has had a direct impact on the proposed tour of South Africa © AFP

The plans for Pakistan's proposed limited-overs tour of South Africa in November have been scrapped due to the PCB's ongoing legal existential crisis that has prevented them from making a commitment to the tour. The short series was planned during a two-week window in November after the two sides wrap up their current bilateral series in the UAE on November 15.

The PCB currently has no board chairman or any kind of body running its affairs, after the Islamabad High Court suspended chairman Najam Sethi and the five-member Interim Management Committee (IMC) on Thursday, until at least after the weekend. Cricket South Africa (CSA) had requested the PCB to confirm the tour at least two weeks prior to its commencement, in order to sort out the logistics. However, the PCB finds itself unable to sanction the tour, since its top decision-making officials are suspended for an indefinite period.

Sethi said that CSA had offered the PCB US$1.5million to host them. "CSA had offered us to play a short series in South Africa. But due to the ongoing legal crisis in the PCB, we cannot extend discussions with them," Sethi said in his program Aapas Ki Baat in Geo News.

"The day I had started working on the proposal by CSA, the court suspended me and the IMC, so the idea could not materialise."

The tour was suggested after the original itinerary of India's tour of South Africa was altered. The seven ODIs were cut down to three, the three-Test series brought down to two, and the two-match T20 series was scrapped altogether.

India will begin their tour of South Africa on December 5, with the first ODI. CSA was expected to lose R200 million (US$ 20m approx.) owing to the curtailed India tour, with the proposed home series against Pakistan expected to help recover some of those costs.

Pakistan are scheduled to return to the UAE on December 6 to take on Sri Lanka in two T20s, five ODIs and three Tests. The second half of November is the only period in which both Pakistan and South Africa have no other commitments.

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