India doesn’t play their archrivals Pakistan in a bilateral series due to the diplomatic tensions which have led to Pakistan Cricket Board has lost about USD 90 million in its last media rights deal.

A reliable source from PCB revealed a five-year deal, which expired this month, in this time, the Green Army was supposed to play two home series against the Men in Blue. The broadcasters who signed this deal worth 149 million dollars had a condition that the series would be held against India.

But since the two teams play each other only in the ICC events, the Pakistani board lost a lot of money.

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“Unfortunately since Pakistan was unable to play the two home series against India as included in the agreement, Ten Sports and PTV the two broadcasters who had taken the rights deducted 90 million dollars of the total sum as per the agreement,” the source said.

The source then talked about PCB already exploring the market to get good money for its international home media rights deal either short or long term.

“The problem is that right now due to the Coronavirus pandemic the situation in the market is bad. In fact, the situation for cricket broadcast rights has been poor since last December,” he said.

The chairman of PCB, Ehsan Mani in a podcast earlier this week had said that the Board was mentally prepared to get bids which would be lower in price than what the Board anticipated and that the board can live without playing a bilateral series against India.

(With PTI inputs)