The Indian government is not very much interested in giving green signal to the bilateral series between traditional rivals India and Pakistan. Although the government has never opposed any of the matches in ICC tournaments but current acting BCCI secretary Amitabh Choudhary stated on 18th November that BCCI doesn’t want to face Pakistan in ICC Test championship either. The ICC test championship is an ICC event which will be played by 9 international teams. One of the key features of this event is the team needs to face their opponent twice, Home and Away. But with the recent harsh times of India Pakistan relations, with Pakistan silently supporting cross-border terrorism, this question is not very easy to answer.
If BCCI decides not to play against Pakistan, whether its home or away then as par ICC test championship rules, Pakistan will automatically get points, which is not a good thing for India as the team is sitting at top of the test table. India should play against Pakistan in ICC test championship. Playing in India will not be a problem but playing “in Pakistan” is a big risk given frequent terrorist attacks in the country. What could be done here is ICC can arrange neutral venues rather than hosting in Pakistan (for example, UAE). In this way, the biggest issue of security could be solved and India will not be worried about losing points.
ICC Chairman Shashank Manohar and Committee of Administrators (CoA) chief Vinod Rai apparently are not pleased by the statement of Amitabh Choudhary. With CoA instructing BCCI CEO Rahul Johri and game development manager Ratnakar Shetty to take up the issue of playing against Pakistan in the ICC Test Championship with the Indian government, there is a chance of seeing some sort of solution. If BCCI doesn’t respond timely, Pakistan will be awarded match points, hammering India’s no.1 ranking. Also if BCCI does not agree with ICC and decides not to play Pakistan, it will send a bad message to other cricket boards around the world and BCCI could be labelled as pressing over lordship on ICC decisions.