No India-Pakistan series in near future, confirms BCCI

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) CEO Rahul Johri has quashed any speculations of India and Pakistan facing each other in the near future. A lot of eyes were glued on the Asian Cricket Council meeting in Colombo recently. The meeting that took place on December 17 was expected to be the talking point between the cricket boards of India and Pakistan. The BCCI had earlier made it clear that India will not face Pakistan in a bilateral series due to political tensions between the two nations.

On the contrary, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had expressed their interest in playing against India time and again. The PCB often cited the revenue loss as the primary reason for hosting India at neutral venues. While it was clear that the bilateral series was almost improbable on the cards, there were rumors about the two teams meeting in a tri-series or a quadrangular series. The BCCI CEO Rahul Johri and the BCCI President Anurag Thakur attended the meeting.

In a conversation with Hindustan Times, Johri cleared that there was no such discussion in the meeting. “There was no discussion on that (India-Pakistan match),” he quoted. He further added that the agenda of the meeting was to discuss the prospects of the Asia Cup 2018.

“The discussion took place on how to make the next Asia Cup (in 2018) bigger. There is some time to go for it though. All the Boards CEOs will come back with their plans on how to increase revenue, potential of the Asia Cup and of the ACC overall. All four (CEOs) will work together. (Pakistan Cricket Board’s CEO) Subhan (Ahmad) will lead it,” he added.

In the recent times, the Indian cricket board has been facing the heat of the ICC and also the Supreme Court. Johri exclaimed that the participating boards were concerned about the fate of the richest cricket board in the world.

“There was a lot of concern shown by the ACC boards about the BCCI. One of the things they reacted to was the treatment meted to the BCCI by the ICC. The ACC members were keen that the BCCI’s interest should not be harmed. If the BCCI is affected, global cricket is affected. Everybody is dependent on India,” he conceded.