India will not play cricket with Pakistan if it harbours Dawood, continues dialogue with Hurriyat: BCCI secretary

Anurag Thakur questions if Pakistan is serious about peace and expects India to play cricket with them

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Anurag Thakur said on Saturday there will be no revival of cricketing relations between the two nations if Pakistan harbours Dawood Ibrahim and continues dialogue with Hurriyat leaders.

"Dawood in Karachi. National Security Agency (NSA) wants to meet separatists here. Are you really serious about peace and you expect we'll play cricket with you?" Thakur said in a twitter message, according to the Press Trust of India.

Thakur's statement comes after in another blow to normalisation efforts between Pakistan and India, the scheduled talks between the national security advisers (NSAs) of the two neighbours were called off just hours before Sartaj Aziz, the prime minister’s adviser of national security and foreign affairs, was set to fly to New Delhi.

Read: Truth is India doesn't want to play Pakistan, says former PCB chairman

Earlier this week, Thakur had cited firing altercations between Pakistan and India along the Line of Control and Working Boundary as the reason for not playing with Pakistan, saying "cricket and terrorism" cannot go hand-in-hand.

“Peace on the borders is essential for a cricket match between India and Pakistan and no cricket match is possible under the shadow of unprovoked firing and bombardment at the border,” said Thakur.

According to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by both the nations, India is supposed to play an away series against Pakistan in UAE. Pakistan Cricket Board chairman, Shahryar Khan, said in a statement earlier this month that he was hopeful that the BCCI will honour the MoU signed with Pakistan to play a series.

“We hope India honours the agreement. If they don’t, it would not be good.”

Read: Cricket and politics should be separate: Misbahul Haq

PCB has time and again offered to keep politics and cricket aside and even some players have echoed the board’s sentiments with Test captain Misbahul Haq stating, “I believe that Pakistan and India should be playing against each other in bilateral series regularly and playing cricket should not be linked to the overall political relations between the two nations,” he said.

However, the BCCI has always left matters to be handled by their government. Although the fate of the series looks gloom, the final verdict is yet to be decided.



This article originally appeared on NDTV.