Pak sets deadline for Indian govt, board

In what can, at its most charitable, be described as maladroit phrasing, the Pakistan Cricket Board has asked the Indian government to "mend its ways" and allow the Board of Control for Cricket in India to schedule a tour of Pakistan, by the national team, later this year.

The PCB has further given the Indian government one month to "mend its ways".

Or else, the PCB says in a media release, it will be forced to invite some other country to tour, in India's place.

PCB chairman Tauqir Zia says that he will need to know, one way or other, about the fate of the tour when he goes to Sharjah for the next Asian Cricket Council meeting. "We cannot wait indefinitely for them (the Indian government and the BCCI)," he says in the press release.

Zia says further that the PCB is in no mood to consider the International Management Group's request to play the 'Friendship Series' in Toronto next year. "As far as we are concerned, the contract was for five years and that period is now over. If we are going to play again, there has to be a fresh contract, and it has to include a clause penalising any country that pulls out of the tour," Zia says.

The PCB boss points out that India has in successive years -- Kargil being the reason in 1999, and the Kashmir bloodshed forcing the pullout this year -- backed out of playing Pakistan in Toronto.

Zia pointed out that Pakistan had been criticised for not reciprocating when India toured in 1989. Now, he says, it is India that is backing off, since Pakistan had toured India last year.

The PCB boss also said he would seek financial compensation from the Indian board, for the $500,000 Pakistan had lost due to India's cancellation this year. The issue, Zia said, will be raised at the next ICC meeting.

The BCCI has in fact applied to the Indian government for permission to tour Pakistan. Sources in the sports ministry indicate that permission will not be granted. And further, that such permission will not be given for any bilateral cricket tours and tournaments involving Pakistan, in the foreseeable future.

Mail Cricket Editor