While India prepares to host Australia, before England, Pakistan may have to wait until January for Test cricket. They will have waited a year - simply dreadful management.

I know the Pakistan Cricket Board had some bad luck when Australia pulled out of a scheduled three-Test tour there in March because of security fears but should a top cricket nation like Pakistan really have to go 13 months without Test cricket – security fears or not? Of cause they shouldn’t. Where are the overseas tours?

We now know that the PCB is trying desperately to bring the West Indies to the country for two Tests in November after the sides meet in a one-day event in Abu Dhabi but there is no way that a once-mighty Test nation like Pakistan should be scrapping around at the last hour trying to fill the void.

The problem is simply poor management and it is a good job for the PCB and for the cricketing fraternity as a whole that ex-Chairman Dr. Nasim Ashraf is no longer but he should have been pushed much earlier than before he jumped on his own accord.

Pakistan had terrible problems trying to persuade teams to visit the country after the September 11 attacks but the then PCB chief General Tauqir Zia ensured that its cricket fans did not miss out on seeing the team play and even if they had to go to Colombo and Sharjah to play Australia and West Indies, at least they had Test cricket and its players did not have to kick their heels for over a year.    

Pakistan’s dependable batsman Misbah-ul-Haq has already stated how his team could be “under-cooked” by the time India arrives in January and he has an extremely valid point. India will have hosted Australia in four Tests and England in two shortly before that trip while the conditions won’t be far different. It could be a horribly uneven contest, though for the sake of cricket and for the Pakistan supporters I hope it is a riveting and competitive series. But one fears the worst.

Ashraf was too busy and too interested in making friends with the Board of Control for Cricket in India and helping Pakistanis into the Indian Premier League than getting his priorities right and giving those same players more meaningful cricket like Test action. Of course IPL lines players’ pockets and the tension improves temperaments but Javed Miandad, Imran Khan and Inzamam-ul-Haq would all agree that domestic Twenty20 cricket is not more important than Tests.

On leaving his post and referring to the legacy he left behind, Ashraf boasted that relations between the Indian and Pakistani cricket boards had never been better. But who in Pakistan will be impressed by that if their team gets thumped 3-0 at home in January. And I can tell you if it happens Ashraf will be nowhere to be seen and his successor will probably have to unfairly bear the brunt of the criticism.