ICC ready to help revive India-Pakistan cricket ties, says Richardson
dubai — The International Cricket Council hopes to play a role in reviving bilateral cricket ties between India and Pakistan, ICC CEO David Richardson told reporters on Monday.
Despite the Pakistan Cricket Board’s repeated attempts to resume cricket ties with India, the world’s most famous cricket rivals haven’t played a Test match since 2007.
“We obviously don’t like the fact that two members are in dispute with each other,” Richardson said on Monday.
“It’s a matter between India and Pakistan. Of course, we would like the resumption of ties on a bilateral basis between India and Pakistan.
“And we will facilitate any discussion if we can, but as I said it up to the two parties themselves. We have a dispute resolution process which is available for the members to use and occasionally when there are disputes, members can use that process,” he added.
India are not scheduled to play Pakistan in the first cycle of the World Test Championships next year. But Richardson hinted things might change in the next cycle.
“For the first cycle, they are not scheduled to play. But as per plan, those who didn’t play in the first cycle would play in the next. I know India and Pakistan are talking along those lines. We will try to facilitate that,” the former South African wicketkeeper-batsman said.
Meanwhile, Richardson admitted that without the support of the Indian cricket board, ICC will never realise its dream of taking cricket to Olympics.
“I like to see cricket at the 2028 Olympics. But the bottomline is we have no chance to take cricket to Olympics unless we are united,” he said.
“At this stage we need to convince the BCCI that it is a good thing for cricket to be in Olympics
from all aspects. It will generate more fans, more growth of the game and the game will get bigger.”
Richardson also acknowledged that the governing body needs to be more aggressive in trying to keep Test cricket alive, especially in Asia where dwindling number of fans at the stadiums has been a major concern.
“I don’t think there is a one particular reason or solution to the problem of poor attendances in Asia. There is a whole lot of issues. If day-night Tests are more popular in a particular country, then it makes sense to play Test matches when people are available to come and watch,” he said.
“We need to improve the marketing of Test matches. We will start the Test championships next year which will provide a context and a meaning for Test cricket. The second step is we need to spend more money promoting better resources, promoting Test cricket like we promote domestic T20 leagues.
“And we also need to schedule the Test matches in advance so everybody knows that, ‘okay there is a Test match coming up in March in Colombo’. We haven’t done that well enough until now. There is a myriad of different things to do to improve the attendances, but the talking point is creating the context for Test cricket.”