Pak-India Matches Needed To Boost Blind Cricket: Sultan Shah

Pakistan Blind Cricket Council (PBCC) Chairman Syed Sultan Shah said the visually-impaired cricket would flourish more, if Pak-India matches were played on regular basis

ISLAMABAD (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th December, 2019) Pakistan Blind Cricket Council (PBCC) Chairman Syed Sultan Shah said the visually-impaired cricket would flourish more, if Pak-India matches were played on regular basis."The Indian government wants to keep Pakistan in isolation and that is the reason they have been politicizing the sports activities between both the countries," he toldHowever, Sultan said their Indian counterparts were better people as they had toured Pakistan in 2011 and 2014 for a series which was won by the hosts.

"We had won matches against India in Karachi, Faisalabad, Lahore and Islamabad when their team visited here," he said and added Pakistan last toured India in 2017 for the Blind Twenty20 World Cup.He said for the promotion of blind cricket it was very important that games take place between both the countries.

"The public and sponsors take special interest in Pak-India matches whether it is between the national cricket side or the blind team," he said.

About the developments in Pakistan Blind Cricket, he said we recently established a national women team which played an international series against the Nepalese side in February in Islamabad and Lahore."Though we lost the series but it was an achievement for Pakistan to introduce the first international blind cricket series for women.

We are restructuring the women cricket and was establishing three regions Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, so that the women players can come to fore and run the game's affairs independently," he said.Speaking about the annual budget from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), he said we did not get anything for the women's cricket project which was approximately Rs 8 million, from holding training camps to playing the six-match T20 series against England last month in UAE.

"The PBCC's annual budget exceeds to Rs 30 million due to national and international commitments, but we get Rs 17 million from PCB annually," he claimed.