India ready to send national cricket team to Pakistan in order to resume bilateral sporting ties
Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao has said that India is ready to send its cricket team to Pakistan in order to resume the bilateral cricket ties between the two neighbouring countries.
This is a very pleasant news for cricket fans in Pakistan as they have been deprived of international cricket since the terror attack on the Sri Lankan team in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/March-c74391 2009.
The political relations between http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mumbai-c820 attacks in November 2008 and it was reflected in sports as well. Both the countries have not played a bilateral cricket series between them since Pakistan toured India
in 2007-08 under the captaincy of Shoaib Malik.
However, the ice was broken when India and Pakistan met in the second semi-final of the ICC World Cup 2011 at Mohali in March. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited his Pakistani counterpart to watch the match with him in the stadium and both the
Prime Ministers agreed upon reviving the sporting relations.
The foreign secretary said that India has not closed the doors of sports with Pakistan; in fact, India wants to promote the sporting relations with their neighbouring country.
Rao said, “In such situations, India was looking at promoting cricketing contacts with Pakistan. We are definitely open. Of course, this has to be discussed between the cricketing fraternities on both sides and taken forward.”
She added that the government has never restricted their teams to visit Pakistan but security has been a real issue since the last couple of years. However, she feels that cricket is something which can do wonders for peace between the traditional rivals.
“It is not that we have forbidden our teams from going there. Security is always an issue and we always like to be sure about security when we allow our teams to go there. But when it comes to cricket, I think cricket sometimes becomes an instrument of diplomacy
in such situations,” Rao added.
Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ijaz-Butt-c64128 also mentioned recently that the cricketing relations between India and Pakistan are going to resume shortly. These are all good signs for the sport itself as the Indo-Pak battle in the cricketing field has
immensely increased the popularity of the game.
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