India never ruled out playing
in Pak: Gray

International Cricket Council chief Malcolm Gray says Indian Sports Minister Uma Bharati never ruled out India playing in Pakistan, but only slammed the Indian cricket board officials for jumping the gun regarding the official announcement.

"The minister never said India would not play in Pakistan. She only hit out at the Indian board [the Board of Control for Cricket in India] for making the announcement before getting the approval from the country's foreign affairs ministry," Gray said in Sharjah.

"The Indian sports minister has written to the ICC explaining their [the country's] stand," he said, adding that India is not averse to playing Pakistan in a multi-nation contest.

Gray admitted that the ICC does not have much clout to do anything if India refuses to play. "At the most they may lose points," he told reporters on Tuesday.

"Now that we have a Test championship in place, what we can do is to deduct points if a particular country refuses to play with the other for political reasons," he said.

"We hope to get more powers to control the game more effectively," Gray was quoted in the media as saying.

As for tackling the issue of non-regular venues (as the Indian minister described some), he said programming a cricket schedule on a more global basis by the ICC could help solve the problem.

Mail Cricket Editor