The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) didn’t have much to cheer about after the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) annual conference in Hong Kong. It’s not just about the governing body’s decision to prohibit national governments from exercising control over the national cricket boards — a practice followed in Pakistan — the PCB’s efforts to resume cricket ties with India also did not bear fruit.
The Future Tours Programme on the ICC website still shows India will host Pakistan for three Tests and five ODIs in March-April 2012 while the PCB representatives at the conference tried hard to persuade their BCCI counterparts to make it work. However, from all indications, status quo will remain.
“It all depends on the government’s policy. Till sufficient steps are taken, mainly by their (Pakistan) government to improve relations, cricket ties are unlikely to resume. In the present situation, the Indian government’s response is negative,” said an Indian board functionary when asked for clarification on reports of resumption of Indo-Pak bilateral series.
Top officials of the two boards, at the behest of the PCB, had a dialogue on resuming ties on the sidelines of the conference. The PCB representative reminded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had spoken about resuming cricket ties during the World Cup semi-final in Mohali.
The BCCI officials, however, said they had no such communication. According to BCCI, the slots in the FTP marked for future India-Pakistan series are still open. As for 2012, the Asia Cup to be held in Bangladesh is slotted for March, followed by the IPL in April and May. Relations between the two governments were strained after the terror attacks in Mumbai in November 2008. The last time Pakistan toured India was in 2007-08.
