Pakistan threatens to quit playing India if...

Pakistan threatens to quit playing India if...
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NEW DELHI, March 25:PAKISTAN tonight said it will never play India in any cricket tournament if New Delhi refuses permission to its team to participate in Sharjah triangular series next month and threatened to boycott the ICC knock-out tournament next year if it is staged is India.

‘‘Pakistan will not play India anywhere in any event in the future and that’s it,’’ Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Lieutenant General Tauqir Zia told AFP in Karachi reacting to reports that Indian government had refused permission to its team to play in Sharjah. ‘‘Enough is enough and we now don’t want to get bothered about India anymore,’’ he said.

India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are scheduled to play in a limited overs series in Sharjah from April 8 to 20. ‘‘We will not go for ICC knock-out event if India hosts it next year,’’ he said. ‘‘We will also take advice from the government,’’ AFP quoted Zia as saying.

PCB director of operations Brigadier Munawwar Rana had earlier said Pakistan was not averse to playing in the knock-out tournament next year even if it was held in India. ‘‘As per the current policy, note current policy, Pakistan will surely go but what happens in a year’s time is hard to forecast,’’ Rana had said. Sports minister Uma Bharti, during a meeting with ICC president Malcolm Gray earlier this week, had given the go-ahead to the world body to organise the tournament in India.

Gray had later laid down a deadline of April 30 for the Govt to clear its stand on playing with Pakistan.

India twice pulled out of the annual Sahara Cup bilateral tournament in Toronto and refused permission to its team to tour Pakistan late last year citing its neighbour’s continued support to cross-border terrorism in Kashmir as the reason.

Zia, also the president of Asian Cricket Council, threatened not to preside over its meeting in Sharjah next month. ‘‘When India is doing all these anti-cricket things the Asian body ceases to exist. I will not preside the ACC meeting in Sharjah next month,’’ he said.

Zia said ICC should have ‘‘asserted itself more like football’s FIFA., which forbids government involvement in sport.’’

India unlikely for Sharjah
NEW DELHI:THE Indian cricket team is unlikely to participate in the three-nation series in Sharjah next month.

Official sources said on Monday the Government was still considering cricket Board’s request for permission to play in the tournament in which Pakistan is also a participant. A decision is likely to be taken in a day or two but, the sources said, it was highly unlikely that the Government would give permission to the team in view of the reported presence in the United Arab Emirates of the Indian underworld and its involvement in betting and match-fixing in the past. Sources said the Government was also not too enthusiastic about the Indian team playing against Pakistan after the Kargil conflict. The tournament is scheduled be held from April 8 to 20 with Sri Lanka as the third team.