New Delhi: The Government has asked the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) not to proceed with Indian team’s tour to Pakistan taking into account the "recent developments in Mumbai", a top BCCI official said.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Sports Minister M S Gill have also personally talked to BCCI President Shashank Manohar to convey their decision.
"The proposed tour of the Indian cricket team to Pakistan stands cancelled," senior BCCI official Rajeev Shukla told reporters.
The January 13-February 19 tour was to have involved three tests, five one-day games and a Twenty20 international, but required government approval.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) could lose potential earnings of around $20 million, a cricket official said on Thursday.
In 2004, when India toured Pakistan after a gap of nearly 15 years, the PCB earned close to $20 million.
"That is a lot of revenue involved for us in a series with India and it also directly affects the new deal we have signed for television rights," the official, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters. India's Test and one-day tour due to start in the first week of January is in serious doubt due to strained bilateral relations between the neighbours following last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
The PCB is considering inviting Sri Lanka to tour if India do pull out.
The PCB recently signed a new television rights deal worth $140.5 million with the Dubai based Ten Sports.
Pakistan have not played a single test this year and has been restricted to just 21 one-day internationals, mostly against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe as top teams have refused tour because of security concerns.
(Inputs from Reuters)
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