Ijaz Butt, the PCB chairman, has said the current spot-fixing investigation has diverted resources away from organising tours to Pakistan, and that there is now no space left in the calendar to accommodate a visiting team.
"The ICC Task Force was well on its way to bringing a MCC XI team to Pakistan in which two players of each cricket board were to be included," Butt said. "Moreover, Zimbabwe were also interested in sending their national team to Pakistan. The current spot-fixing scam, however, has diverted attention to other issues as work of inviting some teams to Pakistan could not be materialised, and there is no appropriate time left for such activities due to hectic schedule of Pakistan till the World Cup."
Giles Clarke, chairman of the ICC's Pakistan Task Force, had called for Pakistan to resume hosting international matches back in August and suggested that an ICC World XI would tour the country "in due course". Following the floods that devastated the country earlier this year, Zimbabwe offered to tour Pakistan to help raise money for the relief effort, and their visit was tentatively scheduled for November and early December. No international cricket has been played in Pakistan since the March 2009 terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team.
Last month the ICC decided to closely monitor the running of the game in Pakistan. After a two-day board meeting in Dubai, the message of the world governing body to one of its leading members was clear: sort out the game's administration or face the consequences, potentially in the form of sanctions. The PCB was told "it must act and be seen to be acting to uphold the zero-tolerance attitude to corruption in sport."
