Pakistan´s premier domestic T20 league will take place in empty stadiums due to the recent spike in oil prices, a top official of the Pakistan Cricket Board said on Sunday.
The Pakistan Super League was set to be played in six cities, but now only Lahore and Karachi will be hosting the games with the opening encounter set to be played at Gaddadi Stadium in Lahore on Thursday.
Pakistan has faced soaring oil prices prompted by the US and Israeli attack on Iran and the subsequent spread of the conflict across the region. Pakistan´s government has asked its citizens to restrict their movement due to rising fuel prices.
“We don´t know how long this war will continue,” PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi said. “We can´t ask people to restrict their movements and then have 30,000 people in stadiums every day. We decided that as long as this (oil) crisis is ongoing, we will not have crowds at matches. This was a difficult decision, but it needed to be made. The opening ceremony will also be cancelled.” Naqvi said the PCB will issue refunds for all sold tickets within 72 hours and will also compensate franchise owners for the loss of revenue from gate receipts.
Naqvi apologized to the four cities – Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan and Peshawar – that will no longer host PSL games this season. “We have to restrict our movements and we do not want to waste our resources,” he said. “I especially apologize to Peshawar, which was due to host PSL games for the first time, (but) there will be no crowds anyway, so there was no reason to go to those cities.”
Naqvi said he consulted Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who is also the PCB patron, and the eight franchises before finalizing the decision to cut down the venues and stage the games in empty stadiums. Several foreign players have pulled out of PSL due to personal reasons, including Australians Jake Fraser-McGurk and Spencer Johnson, South African Ottneil Baartman and Gudakesh Motie of the West Indies.