Cricket: Intikhab joins call for end of relations with India

Former Pakistani Test cricketers agreed yesterday with Indian players who have called for an end to cricketing relations between the two countries. The Pakistani players said relations should be suspended until India changed its views on matters such as the Kashmir conflict, which led to the scrapping on Friday of the annual Sahara Cup tournament between the two in Toronto in September. "The door should be slammed on India until they realise that sports and politics are two different things," the former Pakistan captain Intikhab Alam said. "Pakistan should not tolerate irresponsible statements," the former Pakistan paceman Aqib Javed concurred. The statements come in the wake of remarks made by India's Sachin Tendulkar on Friday that while the countries were fighting "it's very hard to go out there and play on a cricket field", and by the former Indian captain Kapil Dev, who demanded that India should not play Pakistan even on neutral territory.

Hostility Rises in Pakistan, page 6