Najam Sethi, the head of Pakistan Cricket Board's executive committee, lashed out at the Board of Control for Cricket in India on Wednesday not giving him a "straight answer" over bilateral ties during a recent International Cricket Board meet in Cape Town. Sethi also criticised India for refusing to travel to the United Arab Emirates for a bilateral series, which resulted in heavy losses for Pakistan, according to Sethi.
Sethi talked about his meeting with BCCI president Anurag Thakur, which failed to bring a resolution to India-Pakistan ties because of the latter's apparent ambiguity. "I met Anurag Thakur on the sidelines of the International Cricket Council meeting in Cape Town and asked him whether India wanted to play with Pakistan or not. He didn't give a straight answer and in fact he has floated some ideas which it would not be fair to discuss," Sethi was quoted as saying in a PTI report.
BCCI chief Thakur had ruled out bilateral India-Pakistan ties at the wake of attacks by militants at an Indian army base in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir. Thakur had also requested the International Cricket Council to not pit the two nations in the same group during multi-nation tournaments, "We have told the ICC that if India does not want to play us in ICC events we have no issues only that the match points should be awarded to us and the matches considered forfeited by India," Sethi said.
Sethi revealed that the ICC had offered to set up a committee to look into India-Pakistan relations but he opined that "such a committee would serve no purpose". The 69-year-old also claimed that he had complained to cricket's premier board about the damage that has been caused to Pakistan cricket because of India's withdrawal. "I told the ICC members that we had been suffering huge losses since the last nine years because India was just not ready to play with as per the bilateral calendar," Sethi added.
The PCB official also stated that Pakistan would not accept any grant, loan or compensation for the losses incurred, "Add to that the refusal of India to play us and we have told the ICC that we want a clear stance from the BCCI on playing with us but that has still not come from the Indian officials," he said.
