Initial discussions are underway between Cricket Australia and the Pakistan Cricket Board for Australia Women, Australia A and the national U19s side to tour Pakistan after the Australian Men’s side have paved the way for possible future tours.
CA Chief Executive Nick Hockley and his Australian Cricketers’ Association counterpart Todd Greenberg flew home after the conclusion of the first Test in Rawalpindi.
The pair started the tour inside the team bubble but, once the Test had started, they left the restrictions behind and spent time exploring Islamabad, including a visit to a blind cricket clinic organised by the PCB and have been impressed by the hospitality shown on the first leg of the tour.
Hockley suggested that, in the future, they hope teams can experience more of the country than on the current trip, during which the squads are confined to separate areas of the team hotels under the tightest security.
“Absolutely I can [see them coming outside of a bubble],” said Hockley. “They’ll put an appropriate level of security in place. I think it really has been the double whammy of Covid plus it being the first time that we’ve toured here, leaving no stone unturned from the security perspective.
“Todd and I, we’ve been out and about, we’ve eaten out, we’ve been to the shops! If we can get through COVID, I’d like to think that we can put in place plans which will give everyone a really fantastic touring experience, Because ultimately that is what touring is all about.”
The joint commitment to touring Pakistan by the Chief Executives of CA and the ACA, who appear to have an uncommonly genial relationship, was a key factor in ensuring the trip took place, but Greenberg said a team talk given by Usman Khawaja, who was born in Islamabad, brought home the significance of the tour to the traveling group.
“There was a moment the night before the Test match when Uzzie got the team together and all of us, the staff, and spoke for half an hour about what it meant to him but also what it meant to the people of Pakistan,” Greenberg said. “I found that very moving – more moving than I thought I would – the way he spoke about the impact that legendary cricketers like Cummins and Smith and Warner, who have never been seen by Pakistan kids, and they probably may only see once in a career, to hear it from him and to hear it explained to his teammates, I thought was very powerful and sent a very strong message to the playing group.”
The planning for the men’s tour, comprising three Tests, three ODIs and a T20I, started 18 months ago and Hockley suggested it is only the beginning of a closer relationship between the two countries and there is a great desire that other Australian teams will play in Pakistan in the future.
The women’s international Future Tours Program is set to be discussed at an ICC planning meeting in Dubai next month, but there are fewer organisational hurdles to overcome for Australia A or U19s tours Australia will eventually jettison its reputation as a nation that has, at times, neglected most countries outside England and India.
“If you look at the likes of Pakistan, Bangladesh, it feels here that 220 million people have been glued to this, it’s a really emerging cricketing power in that sense,” said Hockley. “So, with the relationships that we have built through the course of this process, I can only see us wanting to tour more often.
“What that means is not necessarily just the Australian men’s team, but the U19s, the Australian women’s team, [men’s] A tours etc.
After both New Zealand and England pulled out of their Pakistan tours last year there was widespread skepticism that the Australian tour would take place because of security concerns,
But despite a threat sent via social media to Ashton Agar’s wife, Madeleine, and a deadly bombing attack in the city of Peshawar that killed dozens of people during the first Test, Hockley said there was no concern about the safety of the touring party.
“Obviously, our thoughts are first and foremost with the victims,” Hockley said. “It’s not the first incident during the planning process. Previously there was an explosion in Lahore. What we were able to do was work with the authorities to get really timely information on the motivation behind that and then share that immediately [with the team].”
“We shared it on our WhatsApp group with the players and also shared it with all of the families back home, so I think pretty quickly we were able to understand that it was a particular motivation and there was no threat to the Australian tour.”
“As hard as it is to understand, it wasn’t actually that unexpected for the players and families to have to deal with something like what we did,” added Greenberg. “Because we had prepared them and their families for those types of things.
“Especially the issue on social media that one of the player’s families went through, that didn’t really put a shock or scare through the system because we were prepared for that. And in some respects it would have been surprising if it didn’t. We had so over-prepared for those things that I think that we were in good shape to deal with it.
“There’s an incumbent level of responsibility on all of us to get this tour up. It wasn’t just about this tour, it was actually about demonstrating to global cricket that Pakistan is available for cricket. I think that that was a weight of responsibility on us. I certainly felt it.
“Hopefully it does allow other nations to feel comfortable that this can happen with the right planning and diligence. I really hope that that is the case.”
