Wasim Khan: "We were slightly concerned whether we would find a window"



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Wasim Khan: "We were slightly concerned whether we would find a window"

The Pakistani cricket league will resume on June 9 after it was postponed due to too many positive cases. Wasim Khan, the chief executive of the Pakistan Cricket Board, spoke to the cricbuzz portal regarding the continuation of the league, the bubble as well as the obstacles they had Khan revealed how the decision was made to play the tournament in the UAE and what was the reason We were slightly concerned whether we would find a window.

What became apparent was that June was the only time [to complete the PSL]. First, we explored Karachi as an option." "But Pakistan was going through a third wave at that time, and the numbers were going up. We were also quite conscious about asking the Sindh government's support for state-level security and all the other resources they would've needed to expend to make that happen." "It was a time when people were losing their lives and there were some serious cases of COVID-19 infection in Karachi, and all over Sindh.

The NCOC (National Command and Operation Centre) in Pakistan, which is like a health ministry, which provides guidance for COVID-19, guided us." "Looking at the state affairs in Karachi and Punjab, they [suggested] if you do have the option of UAE, please do explore it." "We took all those suggestions on board and made the decision that UAE was the place we wanted to go to.

We consulted the franchises, and we find ourselves here.

Profesional agency

Many believe that a professional agency should have reacted, but Khan is aware of the mistake they made and believes that irresponsibility is the biggest reason for positive cases.

"Like [it happened with] the IPL. You kind of feel you're in a position to deliver it. In hindsight, we should've brought Restrata at that stage, a company that has worked with Abu Dhabi T10 League as well as quite a lot in the UK." "It is world-renowned in creating bio-bubbles, monitoring and assessing those.

It was probably our mistake. But we delivered the South Africa series successfully, we delivered over 250 domestic matches successfully in the bio-bubbles." "So we had the required level of confidence, especially with our domestic matches [taking place smoothly].

Pretty much all our domestic players were being hosted at Karachi at one time and we made it work." "The South Africa series too went smoothly. When we came back to multiple teams, with hotels and dealing with the discipline and all of that, clearly there were some failings." "You learn your lessons from that.

We certainly learnt. For our bilateral cricket over the next 12 months, we will be looking to engage with Restrata. A cricbuz reporter asked Khan if he thought this would set back the PCBs just as they were on the rise: "I don't really think it did.

Everyone understands that we are living in an unprecedented world at the moment. We did everything that we could to play in Karachi." "Players are left in limbo and that is something that we don't want. The cricketers are already in bio-bubbles which is mentally straining.

For us, in terms of bilateral cricket, it hasn't had an impact." "As the world improves and we move to a better place, and by the time PSL is played next year, hopefully, the world would have moved on." "We will still have provisions in place but hoping we might be able to relax in the bubble time-frames.

Not only for ourselves but sure even international cricketers would want that for domestic competitions and bilateral events around the world.