HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (HMC) is set to hand over Niaz Stadium to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for 20 years under a new memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at restoring the historic venue to international standards.
The MoU is expected to be signed on Tuesday, with HMC Mayor Kashif Ali Shoro telling Dawn on Monday that the agreement was being finalised. Hyderabad Divisional Commissioner Fayyaz Abbasi, who has also been coordinating with the PCB on the matter, confirmed that the board’s officials would arrive in the city for the signing.
PCB Chief Operating Officer Sumair Ahmed Syed is expected to lead the board’s delegation.
Although the HMC has not made the proposed MoU public, Dawn has learnt that the PCB will undertake renovation, upgradation and construction work at the stadium to make it capable of hosting international matches.
Under the proposed agreement, the PCB will have exclusive use, possession, management and control of the stadium. It will pay the HMC a token annual rent of Rs10,000 and share 25 per cent of gate receipts generated from national and international cricket activities at the venue.
A joint condition survey and inventory of the stadium premises will also be carried out by the two parties before the handover.
One of the clauses of the proposed MoU states that the PCB “shall carry out the renovation, upgradation and construction” of the stadium so that it meets international standards and is capable of hosting international cricket matches.
The development follows a series of exchanges between the HMC and the PCB over the future of the stadium. During a visit to Niaz Stadium on Nov 29, the PCB’s director of domestic operations had expressed an interest in the board taking over the venue.
PCB COO Sumair subsequently wrote to Mayor Shoro on Jan 15, prompting the mayor to call for a formal meeting to discuss the proposal.
Niaz Stadium has not hosted international cricket since the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore, after which Pakistan’s home international matches were moved overseas for several years. Despite an earlier agreement under which the PCB had undertaken to develop the Hyderabad venue, the stadium failed to receive the required upgrades.
In April 2018, the then Municipal Committee Qasimabad took back control of the stadium. The committee was headed by Shoro at the time. Niaz Stadium has also not hosted a first-class match since then.
The venue’s cricketing prospects received a fresh boost in February when Hyderabad Kingsmen were inducted into the Pakistan Super League as the seventh franchise. The franchise is owned by Fawad Khan, a Hyderabad-born businessman based in the United States.
Shoro said he hoped the new agreement would finally lead to the redevelopment of the stadium.
“We have developed substantially for holding cricket matches and I sincerely hope that PCB will live up to the expectations of the people of Hyderabad by developing it at par with international venues because this is the only international stadium for Sindh after Karachi and people have an emotional attachment with it,” he told Dawn.
Niaz Stadium was inaugurated in 1961 and has hosted Test and One-day International cricket, but its prolonged decline has left Hyderabad without a venue capable of staging top-level international matches.
