No Indo-Pak series is a loss to cricket: Shaharyar Khan

Karachi: The International Cricket Council on Wednesday announced that the Indian women’s cricket team will have to play World Cup 2019 qualifiers after the team decided to fortify the games against arch-rivals Pakistan.

The Pakistan Cricket Board has welcomed the decision made by ICC Technical Committee to award six points to the national women's team after India refused to play a bilateral series in the UAE in October.

The PCB said that the ICC committee awarded the points to Pakistan women’s team since the series was deemed as forfeited by the Indian team in the round six of the ICC women’s championship league.

The points earned in the championship league go a long way in allowing teams to qualify for the next ICC World Cup.

The PCB said in a statement that it had made comprehensive submissions to the ICC, explaining that it made attempts in playing host to the Indian women team in Dubai but the efforts remained unsuccessful last October.

"The PCB thereafter involved ICC in this matter and finally requested the matter be referred to Technical Committee for decision of award of points," the statement said.

PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan said, "It is unfortunate that despite our sincere efforts we have not been able to play with India in the ICC Women's Championship. The ultimate loss of Pakistan-India series is to cricket."

An official source in the PCB said that the ICC decision was being seen as a big step towards eventually forcing India to fulfill its bilateral obligations which have been hold on since 2007.

"India despite signing a MoU with us in the ICC to resume playing bilateral series from 2015 has been avoiding doing this on one pretext or the other and it has caused us severe losses," he said.

He said the PCB was hopeful that eventually the ICC would also recognise the injustice being faced by Pakistan due to the Indian refusal to play a bilateral series.

Pakistan has also asked the ICC to grant it special funds to compensate for India's refusal to play bilateral series in the last nine years.