Sri Lanka accepts Pakistan’s invitation in place of India

The Sri Lankan Cricket Board Chief announced that it was ready and willing to send their team to Pakistan instead of India next month. India cancelled their preplanned tour of Pakistan in the wake of the recent terror attacks in Mumbai.

The cancellation of the five week series has cost the PCB a loss of $40m. Pakistan had made all the necessary preparations to host the five week series against the Indian team in January. But BCCI President Shashank Manohar informed the PCB Chairman via email that the Indian team was no longer wiling to make their way to Pakistan and have thus decided to cancel the tour.

The E-mail message addressed to PCB Chairman reads as “I regret to inform you that the Indian Government has refused permission to the Indian team to tour Pakistan. We were waiting to hear from the Government and today they have officially communicated their inability to grant permission at this juncture. I am sure that cricket will resume between the two countries in due course when the situation changes”.

This saddening news was however set aside when Sri Lanka accepted the invitation proposed by Pakistan. Salim Altaf, the Chief operating Officer of PCB informed the press saying “We had invited Sri Lanka to play a series of three Tests, three one-day internationals and a Twenty20 cricket match and they have confirmed the tour to go ahead and would reach Pakistan in third week of January next year.”

The Sri Lankan team is all set to reach Pakistan in the last week of January. The exact date of the team’s arrival has not been received as yet. The series will kick off with a Twenty20 match to warm things up in the city of Karachi. This will be followed up by an ODI in the National Stadium of Karachi after which the teams will make their way to Lahore for two ODIs at the Gaddafi Stadium. The test series would start off with the first match being played at Lahore, the second at Multan and the third at Karachi.