Khalid Mahmood, former chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) hit out at his country's government to form a high-level committee to decide on whether or not the country's cricket team should be sent for the ODI World Cup in India.
Under Mahmood's tenure, Pakistan visited India on a full tour in 1999. Lambasting the government's decision, he said it made no sense to form this committee.
"The interesting thing is that no representative of the main stakeholder, the Pakistan Cricket Board is on the committee," Mahmood said in an interview.
He advised PCB and the government that now was not the time to link Pakistan's participation in the World Cup to India not agreeing to travel to Pakistan for the Asia Cup.
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"While I agree that there is no justification for India not to tour Pakistan now, but this is not the way things are done at the international level."
Mahmood said that by forming the committee, the government was mixing politics with sports, contradicting its own policy.
"If you say that we are looking at security situation before deciding to send team to India, that makes sense, but to say openly that if India doesn't come to Pakistan, then we will also not send team to India for World Cup, is mixing both things, which we have never done."
"When I was chairman in 1999, despite threats from India, we assessed the security situation for our team ourselves, by sending a delegation to India and advised the government we were willing to go to India."
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He suggested that Pakistan must take part in the showpiece tournament or else they could risk facing sanctions and ruin relationships with other boards.
He also sided with Najam Sethi and said that Pakistan must comply with whatever decision was made regarding the Asia Cup.
"I expect Zaka Ashraf to face an uncomfortable situation, when he attends the ICC meetings later this week, because of the formation of this committee and the statement made by minister, Ahsan Mazari."
