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Harare: Zimbabwe could end Pakistan's status as a no-go cricket zone after offering to tour the strife-torn and flood-devastated nation, officials said on Friday.
The tour is loosely scheduled for later this year, probably during November and early December, and could be a series of ODIs and Twenty20 matches as decided by the Pakistan Cricket Board.
Much depends, though, on a satisfactory security check and report beforehand, which will dictate whether the Zimbabweans actually go.
The Zimbabwe players have not yet been sounded out on whether they are prepared to play in Pakistan, given its recent history of violence, but convenor of selectors Alistair Campbell said he was confident the majority would be willing.
"Nobody will be pressured to go if they decline," he said.
Zimbabwe Cricket managing director Ozias Bvute said the idea of touring Pakistan, which has been off-limits because of the country's deteriorating situation, emerged several weeks ago.
But the offer was developed into a fund raising effort designed to help the millions of flood victims.
"It's become a gesture of help," he said.
Bvute added that the Pakistan cricket authorities, currently engulfed by the spot-fixing scandal in England, have welcomed the idea.
Pakistan are due to tour New Zealand towards the end of the year so that schedules may need to be worked out to accommodate the Zimbabwe series.
Meanwhile Zimbabwe are smarting over the British government's advice to Scotland that they should not travel to Harare for their Inter-Continental Cup fixture in October.
Campbell said: "We have 10 Englishmen playing cricket and coaching in Zimbabwe, including our national coach Alan Butcher, and apart from anything else the decision is an insult to them."
But in a cautiously worded statement Bvute said that sport was a great healer and "strained relations will eventually be restored for the common good".
Those strained relations are primarily with England, Australia and New Zealand, while Zimbabwe gets its main (and majority) support from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and to some extent South Africa and West Indies, helping to maintain their status as a full ICC member.
After consultations with the International Cricket Council and with Indian and Sri Lankan authorities in June during a triangular series, it was agreed that Zimbabwe could make a return to Test cricket next May or June.
That series could be against Bangladesh in Harare and Bulawayo and would end Zimbabwe's six-year Test exile.
