Shahryar puts the ball in India’s court for resumption of cricket ties

LAHORE: Pakistan’s dejected cricket chief, Shahryar Khan said on Thursday a letter has been written to the chief of Indian cricket board telling him that the initiative to revive cricketing ties between the two countries would now have to be taken by his country.

Speaking at a press conference here, he said Pakistan’s reservations on ‘inhospitable treatment’ meted out to him during his just concluded trip to India have been mentioned in the letter written to BCCI President Shashank Manohar.

Khan said the responsibility of reviving the bilateral cricketing ties now falls upon India, adding that the Pakistan’s eastern neighbours miserably failed to fulfill the obligation of hospitality.

Yesterday, he hinted that there was little chance of Pakistan’s participation in the World Twenty20 in India next year.

Speaking at a press conference upon returning from India on Wednesday, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman said ICC President Zaheer Abbas had also advised not to partake in the mega event, scheduled to be held in India in 2016.

Commenting over the bitter incident of Shiv Sena activists storming in the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai before his scheduled meeting with the Indian cricketing authorities, he said he was astonished over the decision of inviting him in the stronghold of right-wing Hindu extremists.

Dismissing rumours that he went to India without a formal invitation, Khan said BCCI president Manohar invited him to Mumbai to hold talks in a bid to revive the sour relations.

Shahryar Khan also criticised the Indian authorities for failing to stop ‘hardly 30 to 40’ Shiv Sena activists from storming in the BCCI head-office, saying the police should have been able to control the situation a little better.

Referring to Shiv Sena extremists, the PCB chief went on to say that a small minority had hijacked the India’s government and its cricket board.