Daily Times

NEW DELHI: The Boad of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) has written to the International Cricket Council (ICC) urging it to not recognise the Kashmir Premier League (KPL), the Pakistan domestic T20 tournament which is due to begin on August 6.On Saturday, the PCB expressed its unhappiness over what it considered the BCCI’s attempts to interfere in the PCB’s internal affairs. That was based on reports that the BCCI had been in touch with a number of other Full Members to try and prevent players from those countries from appearing in the league. Herschelle Gibbs, the former South Africa opener, who is expected to play in the league, said on Twitter that he had been threatened that he wouldn’t be allowed entry “into India for any cricket related work. Ludicrous.”

But it has emerged now that the BCCI had also reached out to the ICC. The basis of the BCCI’s complaint seems to centrearound the status of Kashmir as disputed territory — and whether matches can be played in such territories — and its central place in the long-running dispute between the two countries. The status of Kashmir has been the cause of several wars between India and Pakistan from the moment India gained independence and Pakistan was created in 1947. Both countries control parts of the region but govern it separately. Political and diplomatic ties between the two countries have fluctuated over the years, and are currently going through a prolonged low.