No cricket with India costs PCB $80m

Blaming it on lack of bilateral series with India, the Pakistan Cricket Board claims to have lost approximately $80 million in its broadcasting deal with the Dubai-based Ten Sports that ended last month.

A senior official of the board said that since Pakistan didn’t host any home series against India in the four-year broadcasting deal, it lost out on an estimated $ 80 million from its total deal of $ 135 million.

“In our agreement with the broadcasters there was a clear clause that we had to play at least two home series with India in a four year cycle and it would have fetched us an estimated $ 80 to 85 million of the total deal of $ 135 million,” the official explained.

“But unfortunately since we have not had any bilateral ties with India at home in this four-year cycle it has cost us a lot revenues,” he said.

The official said the tough part was that when the PCB invites bids for a new four-year deal in September, it would face the same problems as in the previous deal.

“Again broadcasters will want to have a escape clause if we don’t play India in a home series and it will cost us estimated revenues.”

The official explained that broadcasters had no problems in Pakistan hosting its home series against India at a neutral venue because of teams’ refusal to come here after the 2009 Lahore terror attack on the Sri Lankan players.

“The issue is that the BCCI is not willing to even play at neutral venues since the Mumbai terror attacks. Political and other relations with India have also badly affected our cricket ties and our revenues,” he said.

Pakistan toured India in December for a short one-day series, the first bilateral series between the two countries since 2007.

But since 2008, India has refused to play Pakistan or even in Pakistan and also cancelled a full tour in early 2009.

“To date we have still not got any compensation for that cancelled series from the Indians,” the official said.

He said until recently, the PCB had made efforts to convince the Indians to give Pakistan a home series even if it had to be played in India but met with no success although both teams had windows in August.