Pakistan have broken the ice, said Najam Sethi, who holds the reins of PCB, while describing the national cricket board’s efforts to host a multilateral event in the country after 15 years.

“Finally a multilateral event is being held here,” he said at a press conference in Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium on Friday. “This is a victory, a sort of as they have admitted that hybrid model can be worked, you will reckon it in future.”

This will be the first time since 2008 that matches of a multi-nation cricket tournament will be staged in Pakistan. Fifteen years ago, Pakistan delivered the six-team ACC Asia Cup 50-over tournament.

Sethi refused to speak about the details of the development that led the Asian Cricket Council to accept the PCB’s hybrid model. But he said that the country made a lot efforts, including open and secret meetings, to make the officials budge for the mega event.

Pakistan are the host of the regional event as all gate receipts, including in Sri Lanka belong to the country, he said.

“This hybrid model is a solution, not blackmail, nothing else, it is a solution to an issue which has become a decade-over problem of Pakistan-India and I gave this solution to resolve it. And I think to a great extent, I was successful in doing it.”

He was of the view that there would have been a bigger crisis in case the council had not accepted their hybrid model plan. “If we had boycotted the event, its repercussions could have been in the World Cup, Champions Trophy, then ICC. There were all kinds of risks it was a calculated risk that we will present our case and this should continue.”

When asked about the board’s apparent failure to convince India to play in Pakistan, he said the neighbouring country has not been coming here for the past 15 years. “So this is nothing new as they accept it or not, as far as what we got, they were not ready to give us one match, you only had the option to boycott.”

To a query, he said that the country’s participation in the World Cup lied with the government in power as it would make decisions while keeping the security situation in mind.

He said that the schedule would be announced in the next seven to 10 days.

“I will again send media. We will support media,” he said when asked if media would be sent to cover the remaining event in Sri Lanka.