The Pakistan Cricket Board was charged with a massive 27 lakh bill having fed biryani to all the security personnel involved in the New Zealand visit. New Zealand had decided to quit the series even before it started after an alleged terror threat.
Five SPs and over 500 SSPs (police officers) were hired for the security of the Kiwis along with the Pakistan Army in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. PCB now needs to settle around INR 27 lakhs just to pay off the food bills of the officers.
Pakistan soon received disappointing news from the English Cricket Board, who had decided not to withdraw from their planned visit to the country for a couple of practice games before the T20I World Cup. They cited the bubble fatigue and mental health of players as the main reason behind backing out from the tour.
However, it left Pakistan’s board, former cricketers, and public fuming. Whilst former cricketer Shoaib Akhtar has urged the players to go all-out against New Zealand in the T20I World Cup’s group stage game on 26th October, PCB chairman Ramiz Raja has been disgruntled by these announcements that deprived his nation of some much-needed Cricketing action.
New Zealand Cricket pulled out of the bilateral series and released a statement stating ‘security threats’ as the reason behind their decision. The PCB arranged a chartered flight following this on September 18 and the Black Caps returned home.
Ramiz Raja had mentioned in his tweet that New Zealand will have to suffer consequences for this and was also disappointed with England’s withdrawal, which was supposed to be a 4-day visit including 2-day quarantine.
As the tour did not include Decision Review System, it was touted to not be considered in the ICC Cricket World Super League, which made it a bit easier for the Kiwis to walk away.
