There's still hope to revive Indo-Pak series -- Dungarpur

There's still hope to revive Indo-Pak series -- Dungarpur
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 21: Former Cricket Board President Raj Singh Dungarpur on Tuesday said despite the government refusing permission to the Indian team to tour Pakistan early next year there was hope of reviving the series.

Dungarpur, who returned from Pakistan after attending ICC’s Marketing and Finance Committee meeting at Lahore, said he had a talk with foreign secreatry Lalit Mansingh who assured him that the government decision was not an end of the bilateral cricket series.

‘‘We have not slammed the door on Pakistan for ever,’’ Dungarpur quoted Mansingh as saying.

Dungarpur, who was talking to mediapersons at the Ferozeshah Kotla here, refused to comment on the decision to cancel the tour.

‘‘It is the paramount prerogative of the Government of India whether to allow such tours or not. It is not my desire to contest or comment on the decision to cancel the tour,’’ he said.

Dungarpur, who felt the Indo-Pak series should be couraged with greater intensity than the Ashes, said he would be meeting External Affairs minister Jaswant Singh in this regard. He said his trip to Pakistan was not meant to be a ‘‘PR exercise’’ for BCCI which had come in for a lot of flak from PCB and also ICC in the wake of the decision, but was purely an official one.

‘‘I went to Pakistan after 16 years and I was greeted with warmth and affection including from Pak Board Chairman and the media. But there was deep-seated resentment and disappointment all over...it was as if there had been a death in the cricketing family,’’ Dungarpur added.