Daily Times

LAHORE: The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Wednesday constituted a three-member conflict resolution committee after the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) initiated a dispute resolution process against the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Sporting ties between the cricket-mad South Asian neighbours have suffered in recent years amid rising political tensions, and Pakistan cricket authorities say their Indian counterparts have violated a 2014 Memorandum of Understanding under which the two were to play six bilateral series between 2015 and 2023. The panel – comprising Michael Beloff, Jan Paulsson and Annabelle Bennett – will conduct a three-day hearing in Dubai to arbitrate in the legal dispute between the two cricketing nations. The dates for the hearing will be communicated to all parties in due course and the decision of the dispute panel and the reasons therefore will be made public. Beloff, incidentally, was head of the ICC tribunal which banned Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif for spot-fixing in 2011. The proceedings are likely to be conducted in private.

In a notice sent to the world cricketing body in November 2017, the PCB had asked the ICC to set up a Dispute Resolution Committee to adjudicate the matter. The notice was sent after the PCB sent a $70 million ‘Notice of Dispute’ to the BCCI for breaching the 2014 Memorandum of Understanding. Since the BCCI did not respond to the notice, the PCB took the next step under ICC rules to request an arbitration panel. Of the six bilateral series initially agreed upon in the MoU, revenue from four series was supposed to go to Pakistan and two series were meant to generate money for India.

Najam Sethi, then PCB executive committee chairman, while talking to the press in December 2016, had said: “The PCB has suffered a loss of $200 million because India refused to play the promised series against Pakistan.” With Pakistan-India ties consistently at a low, it is unlikely that the arch-rivals will be playing a series against each other in the near future. The Notice of Dispute was the latest in a series of events that characterise the PCB-BCCI tussle. The BCCI refused to play two series against Pakistan in 2015 and 2017, saying it did not have permission from the Indian government because of strained relations. India-Pakistan ties, including sports and cultural contacts, plummeted after the 2008 militant attacks in Mumbai, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan’s militant groups. There has been just one bilateral tour since, when Pakistan visited India to play two T20Is and three ODIs in December 2012 and January 2013. They have, however, continued to play each other in multinational events like the World Cup.

When India first refused to participate in a cricket series with Pakistan, PCB’s top executives, including Sethi and Shaharyar Khan, paid a visit to Mumbai in October, 2015 on invitation of then BCCI President Shashank Manohar and Secretary Anurag Thakur. The meeting got cancelled as Shiv Sena ‘hooligans’ stormed the BCCI headquarters, disrupting any chances of the two boards meeting to discuss the possibility of reviving bilateral series, which at that point had been at a halt for eight years. The PCB, after repeated failed efforts to revive cricketing ties with India decided to take legal action, and filed its notice to the BCCI.

Published in Daily Times, April 12^th 2018.