Reports: PCB to consider making India their 'home' venue for international matches

Pakistan are keen to resume bilateral cricketing ties with India

According to reports, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) are seeing neighbours India as a potential venue for hosting their ‘home’ matches in the future. Although Zimbabwe are currently playing a limited-overs series in Pakistan, marking the return of international cricket to the country after a gap of 6 years, most international teams continue to be wary owing to the terrorist attacks on the Sri Lankan team in 2009.

As a result, Pakistan have been forced to play their home matches in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in recent years. PCB chief Shahryar Khan, however, indicated that they would like to make India their home venue before adding that they have received offers from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as well.

“We would like to make India our home,’’ he told from Lahore on Saturday.

When asked why they would prefer India over other potential venues, he added: “India will be more cost-effective.”

Although a senior official of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said that they would be willing to consider the PCB’s proposal, he added that their immediate priority is to make sure that preparations for hosting the World T20 in India next year are on track.

“At the moment we are more concerned about hosting the T20 World Cup next year and a packed Indian international calendar. We really don’t know if we would be able to provide grounds,” he said.

The two boards have also been in discussion lately about resuming bilateral ties on a regular basis, with talks for a series to take place in December this year in full swing. If negotiations between the concerned parties go ahead smoothly, the two nations could go head-to-head in a bilateral series for the first time since December 2012 when Pakistan toured India for 3 ODIs and 2 T20Is.