Board 'helpless' over Pakistan boycott

India's cricketers will not be seen in Pakistan

India's cricket board says it will have to abide by a government decision to call off a planned tour of Pakistan next month.

The Indian Government blocked the visit - the first in 11 years - because of what it described as the hostile environment in Pakistan.

Pakistani cricket officials reacted strongly to the boycott and have threatened to cut off all cricketing ties with India.

We wanted the tour to take place. We are sorry about it

Jaywant Lele, Indian cricket board

Relations between the two countries have been frosty ever since last year's conflict in the disputed region of Kashmir.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India said it was helpless in the matter and would have to go by the government's directive.

"We wanted the tour to take place. We are sorry about it," board secretary, Jaywant Lele, told the Reuters news agency.

The BCCI was under tremendous pressure from the International Cricket Council to honour its commitment to tour.

'Hostile propaganda'

India has not played a full test series in Pakistan since 1989 and the tour had been in doubt following the strained relations between the two countries over the past year.

Tension over the Kashmir dispute

The Indian foreign ministry said a tour would currently be inappropriate because of Islamabad's "hostile propaganda and their constant call of jehad (holy war) against India by the establishment as well as by extremist groups".

Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, said that India was politicising the sport.

"It is a regrettable stand taken by the Indians," he told journalists in Karachi.

"Cricket should be kept clean and politics should be out of cricket," the general added.

Cricket diplomacy

His view was endorsed by the former Indian captain, Bishen Singh Bedi, who led a team to Pakistan in 1977-78.

"Although the government decision was on expected lines I disagree. Sport is the best medium to strengthen ties between neighbours," the Indian Express newspaper quoted him as saying.

The tour went ahead amid tight security

In 1999, Pakistan's cricket team toured India in a Test series marked as much for events off the field.

Hindu militants threatened to disrupt the tour and even dug up a pitch at one of the match venues.

The tour went ahead amid heavy security and was used by the two governments to signal a thaw in relations between them.

It came just before India's Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, travelled to the Pakistani city of Lahore by bus for a landmark summit meeting with the then Pakistani premier, Nawaz Sharif.