The Indian government's decision to withdraw from the Sharjah Triangular cricket tournament has finally brought the Pakistan Cricket Board's patience to an end.

It came after the two countries had clashed earlier in the week in the final of a field hockey tournament in Dhaka, which went down to the wire, providing some fascinating hockey and many thrills to starved hockey fans on both sides. Earlier, in February, the two had also played in the Under-17 cricket contest held at the same venue. Incidentally, India won on both occasions.

That is not all: a Pakistani Junior Squash team participated in the Asian Championship at Chennai (Madras) last February and a Pakistani tennis player, Aisamul Haq, was even now busy playing the ITF Tennis Circuit in India.

So the question arises, why is top-level cricket being singled out for such treatment? It is hard to see a satisfactory answer, whatever the desert oasis's alleged notoriety for offering the temptation of easy money (on the side) to the players.

India's government has changed its stance from the earlier "we will never allow the Pakistan cricket team to play in India" to that of not playing Pakistan at all, anywhere.

For the uninitiated, the fundamentalists did accept responsibility for pitch destruction ahead of Pakistan's tours, in 1991 at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium and ahead of the 1998-99 tour at Delhi's Feroz Shah Kotla Ground. The 1991 trip was eventually cancelled due to this conflagration, but in the latter instance the PCB stood firm and the team was sent across the border. The tour was a huge success, with the Indian Board raking in enormous profits while Pakistan was quite satisfied by winning two out of the three Tests, the last of these being the first match of the Asian Championship.

The fury of the Pakistan Cricket Board at this latest cancellation is reflected in the statement by its Chairman, Lt Gen Tauqir Zia, that Pakistan would now not play India anywhere and that no plans to include India would be made or accepted. The earlier cancellation of the tour to Pakistan had forced the PCB to reduce its plans for the 2000-2001 international home season by half. It also deprived the PCB from making big money from a potential sell-out tour by India.

The PCB is also disappointed because it feels that the intervention of the Indian Government is, in the age-old adage, "just not cricket". Rameez Raja, the former Pakistan captain and a senior member of the PCB Advisory Council, told CricInfo: "We are really annoyed, because we believe that politics and cricket should not be allowed to mingle. Secondly, such acts are really disruptive and do not help the cause of cricket in the sub-continent, and even the whole of Asia. After all, Pakistan and India are the major forces at the Asian Cricket Conference. I believe that the world body, the ICC, should take firm action because one country isolating the other on spurious political grounds should not be allowed."

Raja also asked why the Indian Government was singling out senior-level cricket exchanges, while other sports were immune to such unilateral boycotts. Is this perhaps because cricket enjoys a much higher profile in the sub-continent, and is thus easier to use as a propaganda tool? This development is a loss to the sport, and to cricket-hungry fans not only in Asia but anywhere in the world.

© CricInfo Ltd.