Former Pakistan cricketer Zaheer Abbas has requested the Sri Lankan cricket authorities to allow their domestic cricket teams to visit and play in Pakistan. Abbas forwarded this plea during a dinner arranged in honour of Pakistan Panthers Veterans at Colombo. peaking to the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) high-ups, he urged them to send domestic teams to his homeland if they had reservations regarding sending the national squad. The ex-cricketer, who represented the Men in Green in 78 Tests and 62 ODIs, postulated that Sri Lanka, being an immediate neighbor and friend of Pakistan, should have taken an initiative to end International cricket blackout from his country. “The need of the hour is to send teams in Pakistan.
We want Sri Lanka to play in Pakistan. As a neighbors and friends, it is our humble request to let other Sri Lankan cricket teams to play against Pakistan if there are reservations about sending the national team.” Remember, Sri Lanka was the last overseas team to tour Pakistan in 2009. That tour printed sour memories on the minds of the visitors who were confronted with a terrorist attack on March 3, 2009, in Lahore. The attack killed at least seven people on the spot and left many other injured, including some Lankan cricketers.
Furthermore, the nation was deprived of the hosting rights of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 due to security concerns. As the cricket loving Pakistanis are starving for international games, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has sped up its efforts to urge foreign teams to play in Pakistan; however, no notable progress has been made in this regard. Team Pakistan is set to play their ‘home series’ at United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) in the coming days.
