PCB Chief Ehsan Mani Says BCCI's Stance On India-Pakistan Matches Is Hypocritical

Newly-elected Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ehsan Mani has termed the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) stance on bilateral series between the two countries as "hypocrisy." Mani said that the only way to improve the relations between the two nations is through 'sporting contacts' and 'cultural contacts'. "There is a lot of hypocrisy at the moment. India plays an ICC event against us but doesn't play a bilateral series. That is something that we need to address," ESPNcricinfo.com quoted Mani as saying.

"There's no better way to improve the relations between countries than having sporting contacts, cultural contacts. For me, that is far more important than any amount of money that comes into the game," he added.

When quizzed if the Pakistan board is expecting any softening of stance from the BCCI, the PCB chairman said that with Indian general elections in sight, he does not see any change coming in their stance.

"Indian public obviously loves to see India and Pakistan playing, and so does the Pakistan public. Rest of the work is of the politicians and frankly, once India is in the lead-up to its elections next year, so I don't think there will be any softening in their attitude," he said.

"But in the long term, the people want it and you can't go against the will of the people forever," Mani added.

Earlier, the PCB had filed a case against its Indian counterpart for not playing any bilateral cricket with them despite signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which guarantees six bilateral series between 2015 and 2023.

The Indian board, however, had claimed that the MoU is not binding on them as the PCB did not adhere to some of the clauses mentioned in the document.

The hearing in the matter which took place in the first week of October at the International Cricket Council (ICC) headquarter, had ended with the Dispute Resolution Forum reserving its order in the case.

When asked about his preferred route to resolve the issue between the two boards, Mani said that he would have opted for "board-to-board discussion" and "board-to-government decision."

India and Pakistan have not played any bilateral series since January 2013. Both the teams have, however, met ten times in the multilateral events.

Topics mentioned in this article

India Cricket Team Pakistan Cricket Team Pakistan Cricket Board BCCI Cricket