LAHORE, July 4: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) will propose to the England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) delegation to give Karachi back-to-back One day International matches if not a Test in the forthcoming tour of England, scheduled from Oct 25 to Dec 22 this year. “They are reluctant for a Test match in Karachi but the PCB will urge them to play back-to-back ODIs in Karachi to give the crazy fans of the city enough opportunity to see international cricket”, PCB director cricket operations Saleem Altaf said on Monday.

A two-member delegation of the ECB will hold dialogue with PCB director operations at the Qadhafi Stadium on Tuesday to finalise the itinerary of the England tour which is being held after five years.

The ECB delegation comprising director cricket operations John Carr and a representative of Players Association Richard Bevan, arrived in Islamabad on Sunday to hold negotiations in light of the report of the two-member security team of Andy Allman and Douglas Dick which had inspected all four Test venues proposed for the matches.

England are scheduled to play three Tests and five One-day Internationals.

The PCB had allotted a Test and a one-dayer to Karachi, but the ECB expressed concern over England team’s longer stay in Karachi, citing cross firing incidents in that city as a case in point. The PCB had already ignored the Test centre of Peshawar.

In the past, South Africa and India had refused to play a Test match in Karachi in the aftermath of a bomb blast outside the New Zealand’s hotel in 2002, resulting in killing of 14 people including 11 French naval engineers.

The director also said that the board would also suggest to the delegation to agree in introducing neutral umpires in the one-day series.

He said that since the PCB would bear all expenses of the neutral umpires the ICC should not have any objection on it.

The PCB had tabled a proposal of introducing neutral umpires in one-day cricket before the ICC in the recent meeting which was not accepted.

The local umpires had also expressed their concern over the PCB’s move of convincing the ICC of introducing neutral umpires, claiming it would deprive them of the opportunity to get international exposure.

But the director said that since the series against England was a high-profile, the PCB wanted to keep it free from any controversy.

“We will make this proposal in our meeting with them on Tuesday that we go ahead with this experiment and include this in the Memorandum of Understanding of playing conditions,” Saleem remarked.

Saleem said the PCB had been told the ICC would have no objection if Pakistan experimented with neutral umpires in their home series with the consent of England and India.

Meanwhile, the director said that the National Cricket Academy (NCA) would be closed temporarily only to prepare a new strategy for it.

He said that the NCA had failed to give positive results.

Saleem, who had been assigned the task of preparing new plans for the resurrection of the NCA, said that he would present a report on it on July 15.

He said that the names of 20 senior players and 10 juniors had been finalised who would be offered the second central contract starting July 1.