Sri Lanka have emerged as the strongest contender to stage what will be a shortened series between India and Pakistan this month, with the UAE all but ruled out.
The cricket heads of Pakistan and India had what was said to be a “fruitful” meeting on Sunday at the headquarters of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in Dubai.
Though the results of the much-anticipated meeting, and the fate of the first series between the two sides in three years and the first to be ‘hosted’ by Pakistan in nearly a decade, will only be clear later today, sources close to the situation say that Sri Lanka has been all but finalised as a venue.
Indications are, however, that the series will be a limited-overs one only, with three ODIs and two Twenty20s and no Tests. That would be a repeat of the last bilateral series the two sides played, in December 2012, in India.
That appears to be a compromise from which both sides can draw some relief, especially given the hardening of their stances over recent weeks.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) did not want to play a series in the UAE, despite having signed an MoU with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) last year agreeing to do so.
Instead, they invited Pakistan to play the series in India, an alternative that the PCB has ruled out from the beginning.
The PCB head Shaharyar Khan and Shashank Manohar his counterpart at the BCCI had an hour-long meeting on Sunday afternoon at the ICC offices.
Giles Clarke, who is the president of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), acted as the facilitator for the discussions and it is Clarke now who will provide make public the outcome of the meeting.
As well as being a senior ICC figure, Clarke is the head of the ICC’s Pakistan Task Team, a body set up first in 2009 to help Pakistanthrough the impact of not playing at home and revived at the ICC’s AGM this year in June.
Part of the original remit was to find a way to re-start cricketing ties between the two countries, which have been effectively been on hold since the 26/11 terror attacks.
“The outcome was that we had a fruitful meeting between the three sides,” Khan said Sunday evening. “Giles Clarke will give detailed briefings tomorrow. We cannot comment any further.”
The meeting actually began with just Clarke and Khan; Manohar joined them a little later. Najam Sethi, another senior PCB official, was also present. Manohar is ostensibly in Dubai in his capacity as the new chairman of the ICC but sat in the meeting in his position as the head of the BCCI.
