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India, Pak to meet in annual desert showdown

India and Pakistan have agreed to participate in cricket tournaments in Sharjah every April for three years beginning 1999.

The cricket boards of the two countries have guaranteed this in agreements signed with the Sharjah-based Cricketers' Benefit Fund Series (CBFS), the organisers of these tournaments.

CBFS chief executive Qasim Noorani said, if the schedules allowed, the two teams would also participate in the annual October- November tournaments in Sharjah as well.

Noorani said a similar proposal had also been sent to the Sri Lankan cricket board, whose response was awaited.

"The inclusion of Sri Lanka would create appropriate circumstances for the equally guaranteed dispensation of funds for beneficiaries from that region", he said.

CBFS was set up in the early eighties to raise funds for former and present cricketers from the sub-continent, some of whom faced financial hardships at the end of their careers.

So far, more than 100 cricketers have received a total of more than three million dollars in benefit purses from the CBFS.

The next event in Sharjah is a triangular series featuring India, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in November this year.

In april next year, India, Pakistan and a third team, yet to be announced, will participate in a three-nation tournament -- the first, in the annual event envisaged by the new agreement.

It needs mentioning that the two countries are also committed to play annually in a best of five series in Toronto, Canada. That agreement has three more years to run.

Further, the planned annual meeting further tightens an already frenetic cricket calendar, as far as India is concerned. And, ironically, comes soon after captain Mohammad Azharuddin, at the meeting of international cricket captains under the ICC's aegis, asked for a return to sanity in the drawing up of the cricketing calendar.

As the schedule stands now, India is slated to play Pakistan over five Tests and five ODIs in January-February 1999, and the temporary itinerary, now being discussed and finalised by the boards of both countries, shows signs of spilling over into March, given Pakistan's insistence on playing lots of practise matches in between the Tests.

In March, India will then take part in a triangular ODI series involving Sri Lanka and a third country which is yet to be finalised.

Then comes the meeting in Sharjah of India and Pakistan, as envisaged by this latest agreement, in April. And a month later, begins the World Cup in England.

Just how much time all this leaves to the Indian cricketers to prepare for the Cup, is another question altogether.