Former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar says it is "impossible" for India to tour Pakistan early next year with the political equation between the two countries growing tricky in the aftermath of Mumbai terror attacks.
"It will be difficult in any case for the Indian players to play against Pakistan at the moment. Diplomatically, there has been a fall-out between the two nations and I don't see why cricket won't follow the suit; so, at the moment, it is impossible to go ahead with the tour," Gavaskar told CNN-IBN on Wednesday.
India is scheduled to tour Pakistan from January 6 to February 19 for five one-dayers and three Tests, subject to government clearance. But the political scenario appears to be grim after it was found that the terrorists that attacked Mumbai were allegedly Pakistan citizens trained there.
On England and India playing after just a fortnight of the Mumbai mayhem, Gavaskar felt the teams may lack the "free spirit" in the two-Test series.
"The guys will be concentrating and focussing once they take the field for sure, because they are trained in that way. But it won't be easy, and I feel the free spirit or the intensity with which they played in the one-dayers won't be there this time," he said.
Asked if it was right to host the Test series in these troubled times, Gavaskar replied, "Life has to go on. It has been 12 days since the Mumbai attacks took place and the mourning period is gone. We have to plan and look ahead so that such tragedy doesn't happen in future; so just like all other activities cricket should also go on.
"However, it will take a long time to recover; you can't actually recover completely from such tragedy."