Isaac for Pakistan tour

ICC president Alan Isaac (C) speaks as his deputy AHM Mostafa Kamal (R) and BCB president Nazmul Hasan Papon listen during a press conference at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium conference room yesterday.Photo: STAR

International Cricket Council (ICC) president Allan Isaac, who came to Bangladesh on Friday on a two-day 'goodwill' visit, stated that the ICC would readily support a tour of Pakistan if Bangladesh decided to travel.
In a press conference at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday, Isaac said that a team along with ICC's CEO is working with the officials of both the boards 'to get cricket back in Pakistan'. “ICC's role was to provide match officials and referees and obviously it has some responsibility towards those people. We want cricket to get back to Pakistan as soon as possible,” said Isaac.
Regarding the provision of the ICC match officials for the tour, Isaac said, “That work has been done at the moment and an assessment is to be done of the security. If the officials are not able or prepared to go, what is likely to happen is the ICC will allow Pakistan officials to stand. That was an arrangement we had agreed upon previously as a special exception to facilitate cricket returning to Pakistan.”
Apart from sharing his views regarding the possible tour, the president also commented on the ICC Future Tours Programme, according to which Bangladesh will be playing very few Test matches in the coming years.
“Test match schedules are negotiated between two countries so the FTP is facilitated by the ICC staff. I was in New Zealand before I got the post (of the ICC presidency). One of the challenges in New Zealand cricket was to get as many Test matches against all other members,” said Isaac.
“The reality is that it's a little bit of a chicken and egg, and we recognised that we needed to perform more often against the better Test playing nations to get more matches. That's the opportunity. The better you can perform the more you can achieve and the more matches you will get,” he added.