It would be easy to interpret the Punjab government’s demand for the Pakistan Cricket Board to pick up the tab for the extra expenditure on security on Pakistan Super League as a kind of police shakedown, of the Punjab government doing at an institutional level what individual police officers are said to do when confronted with a traffic violation, and ask for a backhand payment. It is true that the PSL needs to be provided security. Especially after the attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore in 2009 made teams refuse to come to Pakistan, which had to play all its home matches in Dubai. Initially, even the PSL had to be played in the UAE initially because of the security threat. It was a particularly key point because at this point, the PSL was the only way Pakistani audiences could see international stars live, in the form of foreign players playing for various PSL franchises. The role of those PSL players should not be forgotten in bringing back international cricket to Pakistan.
While it is undeniable that the PSL needs to be provided security, it is also undeniable that that security imposes extra expense on the police, which is the agency providing that security. While security is a public good, it is perhaps unfair to expect the Punjab Police to shoulder the burden from its own resources, especially when the activity it is supposed to be protecting is a money-making operation. It is also unrealistic to expect the present Punjab government, which is a caretaker administration which does want to take any step which would leave it open to criminal prosecution later on.
The PCB might like to contemplate the PSL being held without security cover, or even the necessary beefing up of the traffic police. That alone would make it an unholy mess, and makes it necessary for personnel to be brought in from all over the province. It would not be able to hold the event in Pakistan at all. While a settlement has been reached, a rational basis needs to be worked out, so that the PCB will know in advance what it will have to pay for PSL security, so that not only can it tell the franchises, but also work out the profitability of what is after all a commercial activity.
