Mahmood, in whose tenure Pakistan made a complete excursion of Bharat in 1999 and who himself visited the neighbouring nation in 1989 as supervisor of the young workforce, mentioned it made deny sense to mode this committee.
“The interesting thing is that no representative of the main stakeholder, the Pakistan Cricket Board is on the committee,” Mahmood mentioned in an interview.
He cautioned that this was once now not the while to hyperlink Pakistan’s participation within the International Cup to the Asia Cup being held in Pakistan.
“While I agree that there is no justification for India not to tour Pakistan now but this is not the way things are done at the international level.”
Mahmood mentioned by means of initiation this committee of ministers, the federal government had itself contradicted its coverage of now not blending politics with sports activities.
“If you say that we are looking at security situation before deciding to send team to India, that makes sense, but to say openly that if India doesn’t come to Pakistan then we will also not send team to India for World Cup, is mixing both things, which we have never done.”
Mahmood additionally wondered the will for the deep involvement of the federal government within the PCB affairs and on whether or not to ship the workforce for the International Cup.
“When I was chairman in 1999, despite threats from India, we assessed the security situation for our team ourselves, by sending a delegation to India and advised the government we were willing to go to India.”
He mentioned the practical factor to do now was once to assure the Pakistan workforce took phase within the mega tournament or it would finally end up going through sanctions and in addition family members with alternative forums could be soured.
Mahmood mentioned no matter choice Najam Sethi had taken as chairman of the Cricket Control Committee at the Asia Cup will have to be honoured now.
“I expect Zaka Ashraf to face an uncomfortable situation, when he attends the ICC meetings later this week, because of the formation of this committee and the statement made by minister, Ahsan Mazari.”
