No Indo-Pak series scheduled in 2016: BCCI secretary

BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur on Tuesday ruled out the possibility of an Indo-Pak bilateral series stating that no such series is scheduled in Futures Tours & Programme (FTP) calender.

"In the FTP, we had a series planned in 2015 but there is no series planned in 2016 against Pakistan. India will be playing against them in Asia Cup and the World T20 since they are multinational tournaments. And India has been playing them for many years," Thakur told the media.

After the limited-overs series proposed to be held last month did not come through, Pakistan Cricket Board had expressed hope that a bilateral series could happen this year, may be in the United Kingdom.

Last year, a high-profile proposed bilateral series between India-Pakistan was expected to take place in the month of December. But it eventually failed to materialise as both the governments couldn't manage to come on the same page.

The planned series had remained in limbo for a long time with little progress made in the last couple of months.

Thakur had last month said it would be difficult to arrange the series, given the short window ahead of India's limited-overs tour of Australia, which began on Tuesday with the first ODI in Perth.

Image: Virat Kohli of India shakes hands with former Pakistan ODI captain Misbah-ul-Haq.

Photograph: Gareth Copley/Getty Images.