Pakistan's sports minister wants India to apologise for IPL snub

Jakhrani was reacting to the statement of India's home minister P Chidambaram in which he termed non-inclusion of Pakistani players in IPL as a "disservice to cricket".


Chidambaram admitted that some of Pakistani players are "among the best Twenty20" cricket players and he didn't know why the IPL teams acted in the manner they acted.

But Jakhrani told
MiD-DAY he had no doubt that India had been trying to damage Pakistan cricket. "There are many instances of this since last year, but this IPL auction affair is the latest one. They deliberately humiliated our players," he said.

The minister said sports had no boundaries and termed Chidambaram's statement as a reaction to the support and sympathy Pakistani cricketers have got even from the Indian public, media and some opposition parties.

"I don't understand how franchises would not want to pick our players. Every franchise wants to have a strong team and it is clear they were given instructions not to pick Pakistani players. Shah Rukh Khan's statement is also an indicator of this," he said.

Shah Rukh, a co-owner of Kolkata Knight Riders had said: "They (Pakistani players) are the champions, they are wonderful, but somewhere down the line there is an issue and we can't deny it. We are known to invite everyone. We should have. If there were any issues, they should have been put on board earlier. Everything can happen respectfully."

A spokesman for the Pakistan Cricket Board told MiD-DAY that Chidambaram's statement vindicated their stance that the decision to exclude Pakistani players, who are among the best in the world, in this format, was an influenced one, contrary to the claims of the IPL which said it was a business-oriented one.

Miandad livid
Pakistan's former captain and director-general of the PCB, Javed Miandad said Chidambaram's statement was a step in the right direction, but a stronger acceptance was needed from the Indian government that Pakistani cricketers were badly treated at the IPL auction.

"How can the IPL and its franchises even compare our players to Bangladeshi players in this format of the sport. The excuses they are offering on ignoring our players is absurd," Miandad said.u00a0

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