NEW DELHI (Reuters)
The Indian government has denied the country's national cricket team permission to play a Test match in Pakistan next month, local television has reported. Aaj Tak television channel said the decision was made by India's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee at ahigh-level meeting involving the country's federal foreign and home ministers. Relations between the two countries have been strained over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

Cricket ties between the neighbours have been rocky since the Indian government cancelled a proposed Test tour of Pakistan late last year and banned all bilateral cricket between India and Pakistan. Asian cricket officials said last week they would give India until Thursday to decide before they assumed it had withdrawn from the Asian Test Championship.

India sports minister Uma Bharti told reporters the government would not come under any pressure since travelling to Pakistan for cricket was a major foreign policy matter. "Our country's foreign policy is far more important than sports. There can be no deadlines or pressure tactics there," Bharti said. "It is a big decision that will not be taken in haste just because people have given us a deadline," she added.

The Asian Test Championship starts next week with Pakistan hosting Bangladesh. Sri Lanka are also involved in the tournament.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said they would react only after they officially heard from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). "The Indian board had given us an undertaking in writing that the team would play," Khalid Butt, the PCB's spokesman, told Reuters by phone from Karachi. "We will wait for an official written withdrawal from them before making an official announcement because we deal with the Indian board and not with their government," he added. BCCI officials were not immediately available for comment.

Asian cricket officials had earlier said the championship would go on even if India pulled out, though they expressed concern that their withdrawal might have a big effect on the tournament's financial returns. "If India does not play, the attraction will be less...but cricket must go on," Jagmohan Dalmiya, chairman of the Asian Cricket Foundation (ACF), said last week.

The Indian government had not allowed the national team to play in a one-day tournament also involving Pakistan at Sharjah in April. Pakistan had retaliated by saying they would sever all cricketing ties with India but softened their stand after the BCCI agreed to the September Test.

A.C. Muthiah, president of the BCCI, said he had agreed to the match since the Asian Test Championship was a multilateral tournament.

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd