India-Pakistan cricket series hits a wall

PCB chief says he's no longer hopeful about series, but confirms Pak will take part in T20 championships next year

In the wake of stalled talks between officials of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) over reviving cricketing ties between the countries, a member of the PCB delegation, Najam Sethi, on Tuesday left India for Dubai. However, PCB chief Shahryar Khan will stay put in New Delhi till Wednesday to hold talks with senior government officials and other high-profile personalities. The talks were called off after Shiv Sena activists barged into BCCI headquarters in Mumbai on Monday to protest against efforts to revive cricket ties with Pakistan.

Sources said a match between the two countries, tentatively to have been held at the end of the year, was discussed but talks were abandoned after the protest.

Pakistan said its team might not be able to travel to India to take part in the World T20 Championship to be held in March next year. It has withdrawn its cricket commentators, Wasim Akram and Shoaib Akhtar, from commentary in the Mumbai leg of the fifth One Day International series which is going on currently. The two top players will return home Friday after commentary during the Chennai match.

Indian and Pakistani cricket boards had signed a pact for six bilateral series between 2015 and 2023. Some of these matches were to be held in the United Arab Emirates because Pakistan was not considered a safe destination. Now, India is no longer a safe destination either. How the two cricket boards will honour their pact remains to be seen.

India and Pakistan last played a Test series when Pakistan toured India in 2007, although they did meet in a bilateral limited overs series in 2012-13.

Most professional observers of the game as well as the business analysts are lamenting Pakistan's gradual withdrawal from the game after a glorious three decades from the 1970s. Not just Imran Khan, who won the World Cup, but also players like Waqar Younis whom Khan mentored, are considered gems of the game.

However, playing cricket in Pakistan has not been easy, especially after the terror attack on the Sri Lankan team in 2009, which prompted Australia and England to call off their participation. Since then,  Zimbabwe, Kenya and Afghanistan have been the only countries sending cricket teams to play on Pakistani soil in recent times. Cricket commentators in Pakistan have noted how the sport has fallen upon calamitous times in that country. In India, many states offered to host a meeting of the two cricket control boards. In response to the protest by the Sena, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee offered the BCCI to hold the meeting with the PCB Chief in Kolkata. In Lucknow, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said  while the Samajwadi Party  was not enamoured of cricket, (the state government officially patronises kabaddi and kho-kho) disrupting meetings was unacceptable.”

“I condemn this (Sena) attack because you cannot barge into the BCCI office and force cancellation of the talks. In a democracy, you can protest but you can do it on the streets but you can’t barge into anyone's office, home or headquarters,” said Anurag Thakur, who is a Lok Sabha member of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

“I am going home. There is no meeting scheduled with BCCI chief. I’m not optimistic about the Indo-Pak series anymore,” Shahryar Khan said. However, he added that Pakistan would attend the T20 series to be held in India.