BCCI asks ICC not to put India, Pakistan in same group of international matches

If two countries reach semi-finals, it is another situation which can’t be avoided, says BCCI president Anurag Thakur

In the wake of fast depleting ties between Pakistan and India, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has asked the International Cricket Council (ICC) not to place the teams of the two south Asian nuclear-armed neighbours in the same group in any future international tournament.

The issue was discussed on the sidelines of a special general meeting in Mumbai against the backdrop of heightened tensions, the Hindustan Times reported on Friday.



“Keeping in mind that the government has adopted a new strategy to isolate Pakistan and in view of the public sentiment in the country, we request ICC not to put India and Pakistan in the same pool of the multi-nation tournaments,” BCCI president Anurag Thakur was quoted as saying. “If the two countries reach the semi-finals and have to clash at that time, it is another situation which can’t be avoided."

The development came just a day after the Narendra Modi administration staged a drama on Thursday to placate a media-induced public frenzy following a deadly assault on one of India’s army bases in occupied Kashmir. The Indian military claimed that it had carried out ‘surgical strikes’ against perceived ‘terrorist launch pads’ on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control in disputed Kashmir region. But the Pakistani military ripped to shreds the Indian farcical claim as an “illusion being deliberately generated by the Indians to create false effects”.

Indian and Pakistani troops regularly exchange fire across the disputed border known as the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir, but sending ground troops over the line is rare. India has also been on a diplomatic drive to isolate Pakistan since the raid on September 18, the worst such attack in more than a decade.



Even before that attack tensions were high in the heavily militarised Himalayan region since the Indian army killed a leading Kashmiri separatist in a gunfight in early July, sparking deadly protests. Jammu and Kashmir is India’s only Muslim-majority state and rebel groups there have for decades fought for independence from Hindu-majority India, or a merger with Pakistan.