NEW DELHI, June 28: Indian cricket officials have welcomed a restoration of India-Pakistan cricketing ties after its government allowed its junior team to tour Pakistan this year, ending a two-year ban with its subcontinental rival.

S.K. Nair, secretary for the Board of Control for Cricket in India, said on Saturday the Indian government’s permission to send its junior national team to compete in a four-nation tournament in Pakistan and then host the Pakistan ‘A’ team in a tri-series is a “very positive development.”

“We’re all hopeful this development will lead to exchange of test tours between India and Pakistan,” Nair told The Associated Press.

The cricket board said on Friday the sports ministry had permitted it to field a team in three multilateral events featuring Pakistan.

“The clearance is for the India ‘A’ and junior teams to play in multination tournaments alongside Pakistan,” cricket board president Jagmohan Dalmiya said on Friday.

The first event will be a triangular series in Sri Lanka featuring junior teams from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in August.

The Indian under-19 team will then travel to Pakistan to participate in a four-nation tournament in September and October involving teams from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The Pakistan national team’s second-string team — Pakistan ‘A’ — will then visit India by playing in an tri-nation series in November and December that will also feature Sri Lanka.

This exchange of tours between India and Pakistan will come four years after Pakistan last toured India for a Test series in 1999.

Under the ICC World Test Championship programme, India had been scheduled to travel for a Test series in Pakistan in April and May, but the Indian government refused permission for the tour, citing security risks.

After a recent thaw in the diplomatic relations between the two countries, the Indian cricket board renewed its proposal to play a series in Pakistan, but the government has not responded.

“This is a major development,” Nair said. “Cricketers in both countries need to make the best out of this opportunity.

The Asian arch-rivals meet only in major international events, the last match resulting in a win for India in a World Cup match in South Africa in March.

Test tours between the Asian powerhouses were scrapped for a decade after India’s 1989 trip across the border, until Pakistan returned the visit in 1999. That was the last tour exchanged, but the two teams played each other at several neutral venues in 2000, the last being the Asia Cup final in Dhaka that Pakistan won by 44 runs.

The only encounter since then was in a preliminary league match of this year’s World Cup in Centurion.—AP/APP