Many Sri Lankan players were injured in the attack

International Cricket Council (ICC) CEO David Richardson has announced that it is up to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to revive international cricket in the country by convincing other nations that it is safe to play.

Pakistan have not held an international match on home soil since the Sri Lankan team were attacked by militants in March 2009, which left a number of national players injured.

“Security is not something that is taken lightly by anybody,” Richardson said. “Making a decision as to whether it’s safe or not involves a serious assessment of the risk. The ICC is not in a position to do [security assessment]. It’s up to the member countries to decide. They have to take advice from their own security advisors and make decisions themselves.

“The bottom line is that the ICC views Pakistan as a very important part of international cricket, Pakistan is going through difficult times through no fault of the PCB. It’s our role to support Pakistan in its efforts to make sure that international cricket returns to Pakistan. As soon as possible is what everyone would like, but it’s difficult to say exactly when and I think that’s about as much as far as we can go at this stage.”

Since the attack, Pakistan have played all their ‘home’ series in the United Arab Emirates.

Despite holding two successful Twenty20 matches involving the Pakistan team and an all-star side, the PCB have still failed to convince any nation that the country is safe.

The PCB rely on the Pakistani government to supply a majority of their security for home series, and in an attempt to reassure all teams that an attack will never occur again, they sanctioned the purchase of bulletproof buses.

Apart from working on security upgrades, the PCB have also been looking into potential new venues to host international matches.

“Coming from a country [South Africa] which was out of international cricket for a very large period of my career, I know that if you concentrate on your domestic cricket and you make sure you encourage people to play the game even if it’s at first-class level you can reap tremendous rewards and in fact negative can turn into a positive and at the end of it all you might find that Pakistan cricket is much stronger than it was even before these difficult times,” Richardson said.

Richardson was recently in Pakistan and visited the country’s National Cricket Academy in Lahore before being briefed on what the PCB have in mind to improve security arrangements if international teams do return.

“The initiatives that PCB has put in place over the last 12 months or so I think it’s the correct way to go,” Richardson said. “The announcement of the Twenty20 competition [PSL] where foreign players will be entitled to come and play if available, again that is, I think, an initiative on the right path because what you’ve got to do is to regain the confidence of cricketing world and I think that’s a very sensible step in the right direction.”

Richarson also announced that he was pleased the limited overs series between Pakistan and India had gone smoothly and added that it was great to see the two rivals reviving bilateral ties.