i'm sharanjit leyl in hong kong. for possible further clashes. it comes after a day the headlines: of violence over an extradition bill that would allow violence on hong kong's streets people to be sent to mainland china for trial. as the protests over a new plan on wednesday police fired rubber bullets, tear gas and pepper spray in a series of skirmishes to send suspects to to clear demonstrators mainland china intensify. from the city's legislature. the territory's leader defends her record. translation: have i hundreds of thousands of people have sold out hong kong? been evacuated along how would i do? parts of india's western coast i was born and raised here. as the region prepares i grew up here with all other for a powerful cyclone. cyclone vayu has been hong kong citizens. classified as very severe. and this story is trending on bbc.com. france's emmanuel macron says he'll send a new oak tree to president trump after the one they planted together this is the scene live where at the white house last year died. authorities have shut government offices in the financial district some people have compared for the rest of the week. its death to the difficult relationship the two leaders have i'm nuala mcgovern in london. also in the programme: hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated along parts had since that visit. now on bbc news, it's

extra time with rob bonnet. welcome to extra time. i'm rob bonnet. in many ways, the most keenly anticipated game at the current cricket world cup might not be the final but this weekend's showdown between pakistan and india, in a rivalry that one former player described as somewhere between sport and war. there are about 500,000 ticket applications for the stadium in manchester which holds only about 25,000 but my guest today will be there and he'll be very seriously engaged indeed. wasim khan is the managing director of the pakistan cricket board. we know he wants pakistan to win the cup but what is his long—term plan for pakistani cricket?

wasim khan, welcome to extra time. thank you. former pakistan fast bowler waqar younis said of pakistan versus india that "people dub it a war." but it is certainly not a war," he said, "at the same time it's just sport either. it is somewhere in between." what do you think it is? i think, particularly the players, they all try to play it down because i think there is so much raw emotion running through india versus pakistan, if you take it in the context of our history and what has gone on, but there's so many facets at play and because the health of a nation a lot of the time is judged by how well india are performing or how well pakistan are performing, it does mean a lot more to many people so i think the players have responsibility just to try and keep it at sport as much as possible. i'm going to throw another quote at you. and it's from kapil dev, world cup winning captain for india. "when i played my first series against pakistan," he said it did

look like a war. in our time we were expected more to harm the pakistani players than win a match." that is pretty physical that. isn't it? it is... kapil dev could bowl a bit. of course, but it's an interesting comment, particularly the fact that we had more fast bowlers than probably what india did at the time. bit i think itjust reiterates the importance of whether we are playing a bilateral series or in an icc competition, that there is so much riding on this game it does end up being more than just a game. yes, just a physical can get out there do you think though? there's kapil dev talking effectively about trying to injure opposing players, a lot of sledging no doubt as well? yeah, i suspect the context is more about playing as hard as possible and the armoury of the fast bowler is the bounce a lot of the time and trying to do that to unsettle the batsmen. i would suspect a lot of his views are based on what normal fast bowlers are like and that is to do do whatever they can to get

the edge on batsmen. yes, 0k. we also ought to mention a quote from your prime minister, imran khan, "cricket is a pressure game and when it comes to an india pakistan match, the pressure is double." so there is a psychological element to it as well. definitely. and if you look at what's gone on in previous world cups, for example, and icc tournaments, india had the rub of the green. it as interesting reading a quote from virat kohli, not long ago, where he spoke about the fact that we just treat it as another game and where perhaps we fall a little bit is the fact that we place that same level of pressure on ourselves to win that game because we know it means so much and perhaps we can take a leaf out of their book. the champions trophy went two years ago, the pakistan players will take heart from that no doubt and be ready for when we play them on the 16th ofjune. the thing is of course, there is a wider political context here. it is a sports fixture which is deeply political. only six months or so ago, four months ago in fact,

there were calls for this upcoming world game to be called off after military confrontations between pakistan and india. the terrorist attack in kashmir which left a0 indian soldiers dead. was there a possibility you think that this game might‘ve been called within the world cup context? from our side, no. for us it was massively important to continue playing. we massively believe at pcb that cricket can actually bridge many gaps. it can be there as a way of actually bringing countries together rather than dividing them so for us it was never in doubt about whether we were going to play india or not. i think perhaps there were some reservations from the indian side with perhaps a lot of emotions running raw after what happened and what took place. understandably. understandably, but from our point of view, for us cricket, we've always seen as having very much a healing power and we wanted to always play india and always continue to play india. so you believe in cricket diplomacy? absolutely. do you? yeah. but the evidence is,

another quote for you — sorry to throw these quotes at you — from the indian sports minister vijay goel, who said that "india would not play pakistan in a bilateral series while cross—border terror from pakistan remains. terror and sport can go hand—in—hand," he said. absolutely and who would argue with that. for us, as a country that has been starved of cricket for a very long time and knowing what cricket means to both nations, we genuinely believe that cricket has so much to offer and so much in terms of bringing countries together. the players actually get on very well with each other. it is all very well enough believing that but where are the tangible results? every time the countries have played against each other, it is proven that the whole world has been watching and it has been a great spectacle for the game. if you're looking for tangible results, you canjust see the passion, the energy and what it means for both nations when we play

against each other. it is sport at its finest, whenever you see some great rivalries. pakistan and india, i would defy anyone to say that there is a greater rivalry than pakistan and india when we actually play cricket. they say it is more than the ashes really. yeah and again, a billion people in india and the diaspora around the world, same with the pakistani fans. it means so much more and because of the historical context, it is one way of i guess each nation coming together in sort of an act of some type of competition where it also encompasses the passion of the nation and i think that cricket means so much to both sets of fans and countries, it is a main sport in both countries. let's talk a little bit about your relationship with imran khan, former great all—rounder for pakistan, now the country's are prime minister. it is hard to believe that he does not have some kind influence on the policies of the pakistan cricket board.

the prime minister historically has been a patron of the cricket board but in terms of the day—to—day elements of cricket within the country, he of course has an opinion... does he interfere? not at all but you would expect him to have an opinion. he is coming from a position — he can come with informed ideas because he knows the game inside out and it is quite nice bouncing things off he. but ultimately he will say it is up to you guys to take it the direction you want to go. how comfortable will you be watching this game because the fallout from it, one way or the other, will almost effectively almost certainly land on your desk in many ways. it is a highly pressurised game. a lot of the time what we try to move away from is that it's the be—all—and—end—all but you cannot get away from the fact that supporters across both countries will be glued to their tv sets and this is what matters most. but in terms of landing on our desk, what is more important for me right now is to make sure we have a really

good world cup campaign and we go into the india game having a chance to qualify for the semifinals because the bigger picture for all of us, everything else will be forgotten if we can lift the world cup. what would that mean to your country? it would be incredible. particularly lifting the champions trophy two years ago when nobody really thought we had a chance, and to come really strong at the end, i think that it would have a huge boost to the self—esteem of the nation more than anything. what is that record against against india? yep, records have to be broken at some stage... just remind us? i don't think we won in god know how long, i'm sure you'll tell me. 6-0. 0ur argument would be we that we won the final so we would accept that any day of the week. it is difficult to imagine though you sitting there just enjoying the moment. there is a huge amount of pressure and what i have realised in my four months in pakistan already is that every night there are cricket talks shows on, cricket and politics are the two things that everybody is interested in in the country. everything has an impact and effect on the people within the country which ultimately has an impact on me.

so i have gone from a culture and environment in england to now being situated in pakistan where it is all consuming every single day. what in the near future will consume you, in fact it has really been consuming you, is this difficulty pakistan faces in attracting test tours back to your country. up to now, you've had occasional white ball matches, haven't you, but no test cricket since the terrorist attack in 2009 on a sri lankan bus. give us an update, how are you getting on? we had the pakistan super league, we brought eight games back this year to pakistan. from the uae. we have presidential style security which is all set up for players who were there. for us the security reports have been very good so we have an independent consultant who works with us, who actually provides reports to the other countries. he is well recognised by the federation of cricket,

cricket association, so all the players associations around the world. the same consultant is employed by other cricket nations as well to look at security. the reports have been very, very positive over the last few years. what about reports in the media, for example that you have made an offer to sri lanka and that south africa are a strong possibility for next year and of course in the mid—term it is all about england australia. give us a progress report specifically on which countries now are likely to engage in test match tours in pakistan. in terms of breaking it down, we have got sri lanka touring potentially touring pakistan in september—0ctober... these are not uae fixtures, these are in pakistan. in pakistan. they are still deemed to be home series because we've played all our home games in the uae. but we have really started the dialogue and we will up the anti in terms of dialogue with the sri lanka cricket board straight after the world cup. the normal protocol is that you invite the other nations and their security managers to come over and have a look at what the security plans are, what reassurances we can provide

them and that is certainly the step we will take. we do not want to look too farahead... you want it to go well. absolutely. and then a home series in bangladesh injanuary so before we can start thinking in the future about australia and england, we need to get these things right first. and south africa? south africa similarly, there's strong support from them and the other nations of trying to help us try to bring cricket back to the country but the only way we can deal with this is take small steps and sri lanka for us is the next step. i understand but there is a perception issue, people still think of pakistan as a hostile place especially to foreigners from the western world. can you correct that? how difficult is it to correct that? is it accurate? i would say it is inaccurate. if you look at the levels of incidence in major cities across pakistan over the last two years, for example, very, very minimal and a lot of the issues are actually confined to certain parts, kashmir

in the north—west frontier. but actually the major cities have been incident free for quite a period of time and the security reports have been good. things have settled down a huge amount but the perception remains because we have no margin for error. so when an incident takes place anywhere, it's straightaway, this could happen in a major city. so therefore we are constantly fighting that perception but having lived there for four months now and look people could argue, there is a bigger threat for white westerners than for yourself because your origins are from pakistan but i have been at airports in islamabad, karachi, lahore and you have white backpackers everywhere and you speak to them and i make an effort tog and speak to them, germans and australians, men and women travelling around pakistan incident free, they have loved their time there, blogging about it. hence why i say it is about baby steps for us. no point thinking three years‘ time, england australia, we have to get

everything right now. we have to host successfully and persuade them to come first. take that step. show what we can actually do. the plan is to bring the whole of psl back to pakistan in february of next year. and the acid test for us will be how many of the western nations, in terms of their players, are willing to come for an extended period of time. it should be said that a number of english players have already played in the psl, morgan included. we had 14 players involved from england. of which four of five came to pakistan but for us it is just making sure that we can convince them to come and then provide everything we can around our security. the challenge for us is always trying to give them enough normality so they do not feel they are confined to their hotels. a challenge also in telling officials from other boards that there is something in it for them. what can you offer them? what is the bonus? i think the bigger thing is more

about why it is important to try and get cricket into pakistan because i think everyone has bought into the idea of trying to get cricket back into the country is critical in terms of pakistan's standing in the world game. if we don't have role models and we don't have cricket taking place in those countries, we are not going to produce the players that we are and we're going to become weaker as a nation in terms of in international cricket. i would flip that around and say, actually everyone has brought into the fact that they want to do everything they can to support us to bring cricket back and ourjob is now to convince them to take those baby steps and make sure all those processes are right so we can get the first nation back and follow it up with bangladesh and start to look to the future. and your government is onside with all this? absolutely. and with a prime minister who see cricket as being critical to the mood and health of the nation because it matters so much we know what it means to him. he has been fighting the cause for many years to get cricket back. and he is fully behind us in terms of the pcb and what we are trying to do. pakistani cricket also has an image

problem in terms of corruption. the incident in england nine years ago with the imprisonment of three players, including the captain, on conspiracy charges related to spot fixing. how confident are you now that pakistani cricket is clean? i think the bigger question is how confident are we that cricket is clean? we are not devolving responsibility, we need to keep our house in order. but the focus has been on pakistan in the past, hasn't it? it has. probably had greater focus on pakistan because there have been rumours around in terms of impact on cricket and what is going on. but in terms of an anticorruption programme and education we have made sure that we are now able to embed that in a lower level in our academy programmes because it is critical that we start to educate them about the choices they make when they step up. what we don't want to do is to get

them playing international cricket and then they start thinking about the choices to make. they need to understand the consequences. but don't you need to pay your players more in order to allow them to resist temptation? well actually, the central contracts are now higher than they have ever been. are they? how do they rate internationally? a little bit apples and pears because a lot relies on broadcasting money, for example. and money we're able to bring in. not having a home series has an impact on our coffers. relatively, i think we pay pretty well. we have increased the money. there have been no complaints from players, which is always a good sign. and we pay good bonuses and we pay match fees and everything else on top. but that is all we can do. try to improve that. but if your players could play the ipl, they could earn a lot more, wouldn't they? they would and that is why we need to look at how we pay these guys. but you need the government to allow

them to play there as well. it is actually the indian government in terms of visas et cetera. we are open to the idea. as we said, we have no issues about touring india or india touring us but it is the restrictions placed on pakistani players. but there is a bigger issue and the bigger issue is that the ipl is a fantastic tournament and you can see how the cricket of english players has improved immensely from being involved in these tournaments. 0ur players are missing out on that, in terms of playing against the world's best under high pressure. we are trying to recreate that with the psl as much as possible. mohammad hasnain, he has come through our academy system but he was given a platform to perform and now he has been picked up and selected for the world cup. we are in the middle of a world cup. what should we do about corruption in the world cup itself? are you confident that it is clear? the icc has taken massive steps in terms of working with each of the nations. they are looking at all

the different possible avenues for corrupters to potentially come in and work within the world cup. but i think what has happened now is that intelligence that the icc now has, working with all the nations, has increased and gotten better and everybody is working more collaboratively to identify potential perpetrators so that we can actually single them out and make sure that they are monitored. but i'm pretty confident that the icc will be as risk—free as possible than any other tournament has ever been in terms of icc. as we draw to the close of this interview, let's summarise your major tasks. are you on a sort of legacy mission? you have a three—month year contract, and you are six months into it. that is not very long to build something permanent and long—term? there are probably a few key areas for me. one is to streamline the pcb. because it is cumbersome? yes. we fund eight of the international grounds.

that are running. we have no international cricket running. so you have the groundsmen, the coaches et cetera, so there's a big outlay for the pcb. so trying to streamline and become more efficient with that in terms of having a very clear strategy so there was no strategy in place and we want a clear five year strategy. i'm sure there's a lot of vested interest. you're going to make some enemies aren't you? there always is going to be. we know and it has been well—documented around corruption, various other things existing within the main parts of society within pakistan which i know the prime minister has spoken about. we want to eradicate that within cricket... how do you root that out? i think all you can do is try to stay focused on what you want to do. if you do that, naturally the people who resist the most, they are the ones who perhaps will be the most resistant. we need to remove them and move them out of the way so that we can progress forward and move pakistan cricket forward, which is the reason why i am here. there has been a lot of noise over the last few months about me coming in and in many ways i have been

viewed as a bit of a foreigner because i am a british—born pakistani. yes. but i have come in pretty focussed. there's a lot of media attention on me, which has been quite relentless. media opposition? yes, pretty relentless. relentless ? people with their own agendas who try to pursue the fact that i have come in from the outside. but i have come in very focused and very driven about what needs to get done and perhaps that is the issue. have you got a thick skin? i have developed one since being there. every night has two cricket shows and constantly you would be brushing your teeth and you hear your name mentioned and it'd be something pretty derogative but... have consulted lawyers yet? (laughs). i'm not sure how things work. look, for me the reason why people have issues is because changes happening and normally resistance is probably more there than there is anywhere else. i am comfortable in terms of where we are trying to get. 0k. what does cricket mean to pakistan? we've sort of touched on that already. it would be part of the thought that shapes whatever

it is you want to achieve as managing director. everywhere i go, the one thing that supporters whether at airports or wherever, talk to you about is that we need to get cricket back. we need to get cricket back. it impacts on a number of levels. from a grassroots perspective, we know in terms of the ecb and the programmes they run here that having role models that young children can aspire to, men and women, has a huge impact in terms of participation. kids who then want to go on and play. so we could end up losing generations because we do not have the role models within the country. kids can go along to international venues in our country and watch players play. so from that perspective it is critical. for the older generation who grew up watching cricket, you know... tough times in terms of economics within the country, tough times in terms of the economy and where imran is trying to take things, it is going to take time to bed things down, but in the meantime you always need things that will make people feel good about themselves.

at the moment they are glued to the television when we play the uae. it is demoralising for players to play in front of a man and a dog in uae stadiums, it is demoralizing for fans sitting a couple of thousand miles away while their heroes are playing in empty stadiums. so getting that back. we know from the psl where we had 40,000 people turn up every day in karachi. there would be thousands standing outside. we will fill stadiums for test matches. we need to continue to focus on that because health of the nation is dependent on cricket as much as anything because of how important and how much it means to people. we started with a quote, and we'll finish with a quote from a sports journalist. he wrote that "cricket is played by the army and the taliban. it's enjoyed by all the pakistan's sects and religions. it is part of pakistan's history and its future." that rather sums it all up, doesn't it? it does totally and not only that but also the importance of women's cricket. we have begun to build that up

and we have a fantastic women's selection panel now led by a former player for pakistan. it is importance of the women's side is important in terms of the reflection it has on society, in terms of valuing women within pakistani society, and the better the women do, the more role models we create and the more girls who can aspire and be inspired by the women players. so one of my big goals is to try and raise the profile of the women's game within the country. are you comfortable with resistance to that? if there is any, it does not bother me. much of the time that will be cultural but only certain sects. pakistan is a thriving and modern nation in terms of its young people. i think there is a statistic that something like 70% of its population is under the age of 30. there is a huge cafe restaurant culture and people want to see change, they want more equality. and so therefore our women's game and our women's cricketers can lead the way and that is one of our goals.

thank you very much forjoining us on extra time. thanks, rob. very good. hello. our very unsettled weather is set to continue as low pressure is still dominating our weather at the moment. this picture was taken on wednesday. grace goes there. —— grey skies. heavy showers around, much of the country has already seen heavy rain and we still have flood warnings in force with more persistent rain to come over the next 24—48 hours. the area we are most

concerned about on thursday is this region, the south—east of scotland where there could be 80— 100 millimetres of rain falling on the ground. if we have a look through thursday, that rain will be quite relentless, only slowly easing away as we had do the latter part of the day. let's take a look at the whole of the uk on thursday, lots of blue on the map. lots of wet weather. across central and northern parts of england, southern and eastern scotland, northern ireland having a bit of a drier day. south england should have a drier day with only a few showers and temperatures not doing great still, only around 11—16 degrees. lots of cloud across the board. as we move through the course of thursday evening and into friday we keep the cloud, we keep the patchy outbreaks of rain but not quite as heavy or persistent as the rainfall during the day on thursday. more downpours across england and wales,

showers rattling into northern ireland too. temperatures below what they have been in recent nights. low pressure still with us as we move through the day on friday, it's just drifting towards the north—west a little bit. not as many isobars on the map as there has been recently, so not quite as breezy. but through the day on friday, another unsettled story. cloud to start the day. some showery rain across england and wales and some further rain showers piling in across parts of western scotland and northern ireland too. by the time we get to friday afternoon, lifting temperatures about 13—19 degrees, not quite as cool as they have been. as we head into the weekend, still a fairly unsettled story. on saturday, we have some showers in the west but eastern parts of the uk, sunny spells and just one or two isolated, scattered showers. temperatures starting to creep up so there is still a noticeable breeze around on saturday.

as we look further ahead into the course of next week, eventually we should lose the showers, at least from the south. still fairly rainy in the north but temperatures on the rise. 00:29:10,848 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 ‘s