World Cup 2023: Pakistan PM sets up top-level committee to decide team's travel to India for marquee event

Pakistan's participation in ODI World Cup 2023 will be decided by the high-profile committee that will be chaired by foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. The committee has been set by Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, that will look after giving allowance to Pakistan as they're scheduled to travel to India for the ODI World Cup 2023 in October-November. 

This step has been taken in response to Pakistan Cricket Board's (PCB) letter to their government seeking permission for their travel to the neighbouring country. The Pakistani side last toured India for an ODI and T20I series in 2012-13, and since then, the two sides have met each other only in ICC events, usually at neutral venues.  In their last encounter, the Men in Blue won the 2022 T20I World Cup game at Melbourne in Australia. 

It is pertinent to mention that the Pakistani side, apart from playing against India at Ahmedabad, will travel to four other Indian cities for their group-stage games. According to the schedule, Pakistan will play the Netherlands and Sri Lanka in Hyderabad, India in Ahmedabad, Australia and New Zealand in Bengaluru, Bangladesh and England in Kolkata, and finally compete against Afghanistan and South Africa in Chennai.

Apart from foreign minister Zardari, other delegates involved in Sharif's committee are interior minister Rana Sanaullah and law and justice minister Azam Nazeer Tarar. The high-profile meeting will also have big names like Ehsan ur Rehman Mazari, Maryam Aurangzeb, Asad Mehmood, Aminul Haque, Qamar Zaman Kaira, and Tariq Fatemi, who is a foreign affairs' special assistant to the PM.

This type of high-profile committee has been set for the first time in Pakistan team's history, due to the political tensions between the two countries. In the past, PCB would take permission from the foreign minister before sending the team to India. Earlier, reports suggested that the Pakistan board was to send delegates to check on the team's World Cup venues.

The volume of ministers involved in giving clearance to the Pakistani team is understood, as India rejected the offer to travel to Pakistan for Asia Cup 2023, as a result of which India's matches were shifted to Sri Lanka.