Peshawar Zalmi owner bats for IPL, PSL teams faceoff

Javed Afridi, the owner of Peshawar Zalmi, has proposed the face-off between the IPL and the PSL teams. Peshawar Zalmi is one of the five participating teams of the newly formed Pakistan Super League (PSL). There is no doubt about the huge popularity of PSL and the Indian Premier League (IPL).

While the PSL is the new T20 league on the blocks, IPL stands out as the father figure tournament for T20 leagues across the globe. Javed Afridi proposed the idea of matches between the teams of both the leagues at a neutral venue. In his recent interaction with Anurag Thakur, the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), he made this proposal.

“We had a discussion over Pakistan and India cricket relations. We also talked about IPL and PSL teams. He was happy to meet me, and said we should play Pakistan on a third [neutral] venue,” quoted Javed Afridi after the meeting with the BCCI President.

Javed Afridi later took to Twitter to share his enthusiasm about the meeting. He shared pictures of him giving the Peshawar Zalmi jersey to Anurag Thakur. He further commended the efforts of Thakur in the sport. He tweeted, “Sports Diplomacy #PakvsIndia has to continue ,amazing & enthusiastic approach for his efforts in sports & youth. @ianuragthakur.”

Sports Diplomacy #PakvsIndia has to continue ,amazing & enthusiastic approach for his efforts in sports & youth. @ianuragthakur pic.twitter.com/KqGvSlomUJ

— Javed Afridi (@JAfridi10) November 25, 2016

Afridi further added that he had met a couple of owners of the IPL teams before. He revealed that even the IPL teams are keen on playing the PSL teams at the neutral venue. The next meeting the owners and delegates will be in Sri Lanka in December.

“The point that I stressed upon was to allow IPL teams to play against PSL outfits on a neutral venue. I met a couple of team owners of IPL here and they are quite keen to have matches with us; the meeting was very successful. The second round of the meeting will be in Sri Lanka on December 17,” he quoted.

While the idea of IPL teams playing the PSL teams sounds fruitful, it is not going to be an easy task. The political tensions between the two countries have been on the rise. Earlier this year, the BCCI President had requested the ICC to not include India and Pakistan in the same group for ICC events citing political reasons.

He had also quashed all possibilities of India playing Pakistan in a bilateral series. “No question of playing cricket. Today, priority is to expose Pakistan as a country which sponsors terrorism. We can’t even think of such thing (playing cricket with Pakistan),” Anurag Thakur had said.