India's government has refused permission to send a cricket team for a full tour of Pakistan early next year following the deadly Mumbai attacks, Indian television reported on Sunday. The tour was cancelled amid a government probe into Pakistani links to the assaults on the country's financial capital by heavily-armed militants that left nearly 200 people dead.
The NDTV and CNN-IBN news channels, quoting unnamed government sources, said the matches were also unlikely to be played at neutral venues. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) declined to comment on the reports, saying its request for a security clearance for the tour was pending with the government.
India were scheduled to play three Tests, five one-day internationals and a Twenty20 match during the five-week tour from January 13 to February 19.
It was to be the fifth bilateral series between the two countries since 2004, when cricket ties resumed after a 15-year gap due to political tensions between the warring neighbours. The tour was first put in doubt earlier this month when the Indian government denied permission to the national junior hockey team to visit Pakistan.
Australia cancelled a Test tour of Pakistan in March and the International Cricket Council put off the high-profile Champions Trophy there in September due to security concerns. Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief Ijaz Butt had said on Friday the fate of India's tour lay in the hands of the respective governments.
"The security situation is out of our control and after what has happened in Mumbai, the decision on the Indian team's tour of Pakistan is now in two governments' hands," Butt said.
"Relocating the home series to neutral venues was a huge financial loss in the past so it's detestable but in an effort to give our players some cricket we will have to do that, but as a last resort." Cricket officials in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had offered to host the series.
The BCCI is also waiting for England to confirm next week's two-Test tour of India after the last two one-day matches were cancelled and the tourists returned home following the Mumbai attacks.
The BCCI shifted the second Test from Mumbai to Chennai, but retained Vadodara as the venue for a three-day practice match from December 5 and the first Test in Ahmedabad from December 11.