KARACHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is facing a complicated situation while compiling the schedule for the upcoming home cricket season in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Green Caps will face Australia in October for two-Test and three-T20I series, but at the same time, the Afghan Premier League will be taking place in Sharjah, which means the PCB will be only left with two venues — Dubai and Abu Dhabi — to host the matches. After that, the Men in Green will face New Zealand in a three-Test, three-ODI and as many T20Is, at a time when T10 League will be taking place in Sharjah. Meanwhile, England Lions are due to visit the UAE for warm-up games and that means the PCB will have only two venues to organise all the matches which might prove to be a difficult task. Sources said that with so much cricket happening in the UAE, the PCB was also worried about the crowd’s interest in the matches as well. The sources further confirmed that board officials were not happy with the amount of cricket being played in the country as they believe that Pakistan’s Test matches would suffer the most as the audience’s interest was very limited before as well, and the venue which attracted the most crowd — Sharjah — would be busy in hosting different leagues. Australia and New Zealand officials are currently on the tour of UAE to look after the arrangements for the series and the PCB is expected to announce the schedule for the tours by the end of this week. When asked about the matter, PCB chairman Najam Sethi said: “We’ve an agreement with UAE cricket authorities to not host any cricket 35 days prior to the Pakistan Super League (PSL). However, they can host any league, be it their own or of any other country during our home season. With so much cricket to be played and just three venues available, I am sure it was hard for them as well to find window for so many leagues.” Published in Daily Times, August 17th 2018.