Pakistan's blind cricketers hold protest against PCB over lack of budget

The Pakistan blind cricketers held a protest against the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for allocating insufficient budget to the visually impaired athletes of the country. The cricketers gathered in numbers outside the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore and criticized the cricketing body over the issue of the low budget. They asked for an increase in their budget.

The blind cricketers asserted that currently, they receive only 10,000 rupees, per month. They also added that getting this amount as a part of their central contract was inadequate. The budget of the Blind Cricket Council has not been increased over the period of the last two years.

An annual budget of about 17,000,000 has been set for the Blind Cricket Council by the PCB as reported in Cricket Pakistan. The Blind Cricket Council had also made an appeal to increase the annual budget, however, the PCB rejected the request of the council.

PCB later accepted the demand to increase the budget

Pakistan’s Blind cricketers later called off their protest when their demand was accepted. The PCB agreed to the demands of the cricketers by increasing the budget by five percent. After the captain of the team Nisar Ali informed the cricketers about the PCB’s decision, the cricketers stopped the protest.

The players ended the protest only after the assurance from the PCB. Thus, the captain of the side added that if the budget was not increased further within the span of one month, the players will stage the protest again in front of the Prime Minister’s house. The situation of the specially challenged cricketers around the world has come to the fore with such instances.

Recently, Naresh Tumda, India’s Blind cricketer who was the part of World Cup-winning team was seen working as a laborer. He had tried to get some government jobs but was unable to get any responses. Owing to this, he had to sell vegetables. This wasn’t enough to cater to the needs of the family which led him to pick bricks and make ends meet. He is the sole bread earner and has the responsibility of taking care of five people in his family.