NZC denies travelling to Pakistan during their UAE tour

New Zealand is set to face Pakistan later this year in the United Arab Emirates in 3 Tests, 3 ODIs and as many T20 Internationals. Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) have been pondering to move the T20I series to Pakistan and had requested New Zealand Cricket (NZC) to travel for the same. But they have clearly denied the request giving the security reasons and the hopes of the Men in Green hosting them after 15 years are thrashed.

PCB is trying its best to bring back international cricket in the country. They hosted the concluding stages of PSL earlier this year and Sri Lanka and World XI for T20 Internationals last year successfully. The security has also improved over the years in the country and there were hopes that more teams will travel in the future. Their chief Najam Sethi had expressed confidence of hosting Australia and New Zealand but their plans are shelved now.

NZC chairman explains

The chairman of NZC, Greg Barclay, clarified that they had to follow the security advice while taking the decision of travelling to Pakistan. He also understood the situation of Pakistan Cricket where no major teams apart from Sri Lanka have travelled since 2009.

“At the end of the day, it came down to following the advisory and the security reports we’d obtained. There’s no doubt they (Pakistan Cricket Board) are disappointed. I think they saw a tour by a country like New Zealand as being a great precedent for them to start to build an international programme back in Pakistan,” NZ Cricket Chairman Greg Barclay told News Hub on Tuesday.

However, he was also confident that the decision of not touring Pakistan will not affect the relations between the two cricket boards in the near future. “So they’re disappointed but they’re good guys, we get on really well with Pakistan, and I think they’re fully accepting of the decision that we’ve reached,” he added.

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