Canada Cup Four Nation Twenty20 in Toronto 2008-09

Pakistan, Canada, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe will play four-nation tournament that runs October 10-13, 2008.

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India vs Pakistan 2008-09 Cricket Series

India vs Pakistan 2008-09 Cricket Series

India will play 5 ODIs and only Twenty20, followed by 3 test matches during the Pakistan tour starting January 04 2009.

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India's First Live Webcam Site

Pakistan to play international cricket in Dubai

Sep 25, 2008

The Pakistan Cricket Board has signed a three-year, US$9 million deal to play international limited-overs and Twenty20 matches in Dubai, starting with a triangular tournament next year.
"Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh are the participating teams for next year's one-day international tournament in April," PCB spokesman Mansoor Suhail said Thursday. The one-day internationals will be played at new stadium being constructed at Dubai Sports City, the United Arab Emirates, with whom the PCB has signed the deal.
Suhail said that the stadium is expected to be completed in March 2009 and will open with the triangular tournament. The move to play international cricket in Dubai comes after Australia refused to tour Pakistan this year due to security fears and the Champions Trophy tournament was postponed for a year after four leading teams expressed their reservations over touring the country.
Pakistan, which has not played a test match this year, is now planning to rope in the West Indies for two test matches in November after both teams played three one-day internationals in Abu Dhabi.
The United Arab Emirates is not a new cricketing venue for Pakistan. Sharjah has hosted a number of international limited-overs tournaments featuring Pakistan, as well as a test match between Australia and Pakistan in 2002 when foreign teams refused to tour Pakistan after the 2001 Sept. 11 attacks.

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Rawalpindi to host India Test

Sep 23, 2008

Rawalpindi will host its first cricket Test in more than four years when India tours Pakistan in January.
India will play Pakistan in the second Test and third limited-overs match of the series at Rawalpindi, according to the Pakistan Cricket Board's tour itinerary released Tuesday. India played Pakistan the last time Rawalpindi hosted a Test match in April 2004.
Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated at Rawalpindi in December, and the city has been the scene of several violent incidents in past years. The city is also located near the federal capital Islamabad where at least 53 people died after a powerful blast at the Marriott Hotel on Saturday. "As of now Rawalpindi is the venue," PCB spokesman Mansoor Suhail said, adding that the schedule was finalized before the Marriott blast.
The Indian team arrives in Pakistan on Jan. 4 and is scheduled to play a three-day warm-up match at Hyderabad before the first Test at Karachi. Lahore will host the third and final Test starting Jan. 29. The Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium was extensively renovated for the Champions Trophy before being excluded as one of the limited-overs tournament's three venues. The Champions Trophy was eventually postponed for a year due to security concerns held by the participating teams.

• India vs Pakistan 2008-09 Cricket Series

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Pakistan allows Shoaib Akhtar to play domestic event

Sept 23, 2008

Pakistan cricket authorities said Tuesday that controversial paceman Shoaib Akhtar can play in a domestic cricket tournament -- just one week after barring him from the same event.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said Akhtar can play in a Twenty20 event without paying a 90,000-dollar fine that he owes from an earlier disciplinary breach, contradicting an earlier statement from a PCB legal adviser. The 33-year-old paceman was banned for five years in April for criticising the PCB's failure to award him a central contract. It was later reduced by an appeals commission to 18 months but the commission also imposed the fine. Lahore High court suspended the ban in July but upheld the fine.
"We never barred him from playing the domestic event," PCB chief operating officer Shafqat Naghmi told AFP. Akhtar was not initially included in any of the 13 teams due to compete for the national T20 title from October 4-8 after PCB legal adviser Taffazul Rizvi said last Tuesday that Akthar could not play.
But his name was included recently in the Islamabad team for the event, which will serve as selection test for a four-nation event in Canada. Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Canada are competing in the event, which will be held in Toronto from October 10-13.
The PCB last month included Akhtar in a 15-man squad for the Champions Trophy, but two days later the PCB changed its stance and said Akhtar could only play if he paid the fine. The trophy was, however, postponed for 12 months over security fears.
Akhtar returned home early Tuesday after playing two first-class matches for Surrey in the English county season. He managed just one wicket in two matches and failed to help Surrey avoid relegation to Division Two. Akhtar said he will play in the domestic event.
"I am disappointed on not getting the number of wickets I wished but I have just returned from fitness problems so it will take some time to gain full rhythm," he said. "I will play in the domestic T20 event to prove my fitness and want to play for Pakistan as soon as possible," said Akhtar, whose last match for Pakistan was the third Test against India at Bangalore in December last year.

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PCB inks deal with Dubai Sports City

Sept 23, 2008

Grappling with financial woes following the teams' reluctance from touring the country owing to security reasons, the Pakistan Cricket Board today saw a ray of light when it inked a deal worth USD 9 million with Dubai Sports City.
The deal will see Pakistan take on Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in a tri series next year. "And then we play four Twenty20 matches in the next two years. We get paid USD 3 million each for the three-year assignment," a senior official of the Board said.
The Dubai Sports City is reported to be a brainchild of Abdul Rehman Bukhatir, who ran the successful one-day series and tournaments in Sharjah before they were discontinued in 2003. The Board official said PCB would have earned around USD 2.75 million from hosting the Champions Trophy this month.
"It has not been a productive year for us financially because we were also expecting an income of around USD 6 million from hosting the Australians for a Test series in April. But that too has been postponed till 2009," he said.

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Sports ministry to monitor PCB operations

Sept 22, 2008

The Pakistan Cricket Board will be monitored by the sports ministry until it finds a new chairman of the board.
"There was a big legal vacuum as the working of the PCB was virtually paralyzed since the resignation of its chairman," Mohammad Ashraf, secretary of the sports ministry, said Monday. Nasim Ashraf resigned as chairman hours after Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf stepped down on Aug. 18. The new president, Asif Ali Zardari, is also the patron of the board and has yet to appoint a new chairman.
"From now on, the cricket board has to refer us all the important issues like organizing any international cricket and any developmental projects," Mohammad Ashraf said.
Pakistan cricket sustained a huge setback when, just days after Ashraf's resignation, the International Cricket Council postponed the Champions Trophy after Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa expressed their reluctance to tour Pakistan due to security concerns. It is the first time that the PCB will be referring issues to the sports ministry, rather than operating independently.
Former Pakistan captain Intikhab Alam said the board should have appointed a new chairman on the day that Ashraf resigned. "It will be a new experience for the present officials of the cricket board as they have to report to the sports ministry," he said. "Let's see how it works out."
Since the postponement of the Champions Trophy, the PCB has twice tried unsuccessfully to arrange international matches for the Pakistan team. South Africa declined to host a triangular series due to its hectic international schedule and a one-day international series against Sri Lanka failed to materialize due to a lack of interest from sponsors.
The PCB is trying to convince the West Indies to play two Test matches in Pakistan in November.

ICC Champions Trophy 2009

The 2009 ICC Champions Trophy, originally scheduled to be held in Pakistan in 2008, was moved to South Africa by the ICC. The eight-team tournament is scheduled to take place from 24 September to 5 October at the Wanderers and Centurion stadiums.

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Asia Cup Cricket 2008

The Ninth Edition of the Asia Cup will be held at Pakistan in june 2008.

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Bangladesh Tri Series 2008

India and Pakistan join Bangladesh in the Tri-Series, which is scheduled to start from 8 june 2008.

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