Pakistan board asks the BCCI to either play cricket with them or compensate for the losses

Pakistan and India have been having a rigid cricketing relationship over the last few years and the political tensions between the two nations have made it only worse. The BCCI have been reluctant to play against the Pakistanis in a bilateral series since 2012. However, the Pakistani board doesn't seem to be comfortable with the BCCI 's decision and has asked the ICC to intervene in this issue.

Pakistan cricket board's executive committee chairman Najam Sethi had urged the BCCI to either play cricket with them or compensate for the losses that they suffered due to the lack of bilateral series against the Indians.

"We have mentioned it clearly to BCCI and ICC in a recent meeting that either India should play cricket with Pakistan or compensate us for damages," Sethi was quoted as saying by the Dawn. "We have also demanded compensation from ICC as the PCB is suffering financially because of non-fulfillment of the BCCI's commitment to play cricket series with Pakistan."

Sethi mentioned that the BCCI and PCB had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2014 agreeing to play six bilateral series between 2015 and 2023. However, due to the political tensions between the two nations, the BCCI had ruled out any possibility of resuming the cricketing ties. The national board's president Anurag Thakur even went to claim that he had asked the ICC to not put India and Pakistan in the same group in the ICC events.

The India board had sought consent for a limited-overs series against Pakistan in Sri Lanka in December 2015, however, the Indian government did not grant the same, due to which it was eventually cancelled.

The teams have not played a bilateral series against each other since December 2012 when Pakistan visited India for an ODI series, but have met in various multi-team tournaments since then, including the World Cup, World T20, Champions Trophy and Asia Cup. The last time India and Pakistan played a full Test series was before the terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008.

This isn't the first time that the Pakistan cricket board has come out with such a statement on a public platform. The PCB's representative had raised this issue during ICC's special general meeting in South Africa last month.