Pakistani cricket fans burn an effigy of IPL commissioner Lalit Modi in Lahore on Wednesday. (AP)

Jan. 21: Pakistan has sworn sporting retribution using events ranging from hockey to kabaddi and expressed diplomatic outrage at the Indian Premier League (IPL) teams’ refusal to touch the country’s players during Tuesday’s auction.

The Indian government sought to distance itself from the IPL controversy but used the opportunity to publicly advise Pakistan to “introspect on the reasons which have put a strain on relations”.

Pakistan interior minister Rehman Malik led the chorus of protests. “I want to make it clear that whether it is India or any other country in the world, their citizens would have to face (the) same behaviour as meted out to our people. If there is a desire to improve Indo-Pak friendship, respect should be given to Pakistani sportspersons,” Malik was quoted as saying in Islamabad by TV channels.

Sports minister Ijaz Hussain Jhakrani said his country “had decided not to send our kabbadi team to India”. “The way India behaved with us is highly condemnable. We will give a befitting reply.”

“I talked to my Indian counterpart by telephone today and told him in unambiguous terms that we have been humiliated,” Jhakrani said.

Former hockey captain Islahuddin Siddiqui called for a boycott of the Hockey World Cup, to be played in Delhi from February 28 to March 13, as a way of retaliation against the IPL snub. “We should not send our team to the event,” he said.

Former Pakistan cricket captain Zaheer Abbas echoed Siddiqui. Javed Miandad, another former captain, said: “It is a conspiracy against Pakistan. It is an attempt to isolate Pakistan. It is simply unacceptable.”

But Jhakrani did not dismiss outright the plans to send the hockey team to India. “This is going to be an international event. We will take up the issue with the International Hockey Federation to ensure that our players are not badly treated or harmed during the trip to India,” the minister added.

Pakistan’s senior Opposition lawmaker Khwaja Saad Rafiq reacted with caution, saying: “This is the victory of the extremist lobby in India but we should make every effort to save the peace process.”

However, Rafiq added that such machinations were not possible without the help and support of some “extremist elements” within the Indian government.

Sources in the Pakistani cricket team said the players had decided to “avoid” the IPL till diplomatic ties normalised. The players held a meeting in Brisbane, where the team will play an ODI series against Australia.

“The players unanimously decided to avoid playing in the IPL in future and until relations between the two countries normalised,” one source said. “The players were pretty upset that no franchisee was willing to bid for them and they all felt this was a planned move by the IPL and franchisees to humiliate them publicly.”

In Delhi, the external affairs ministry issued a release pointing out that visas had already been issued to 17 Pakistani cricketers to participate in this year’s IPL, scheduled to begin on March 12.

External affairs minister S.M. Krishna and his senior officials sought to distance themselves from the auction. “The government has nothing to do with the IPL, on the selection of players and various exercises that are connected with it. So Pakistan will have to draw a line between where the Government of India is connected and where the Government of India is an actor,” Krishna said in New Delhi.

“Blaming the government for the absence of Pakistani players from the next edition of the IPL is unfortunate. Pakistan should introspect on the reasons which have put a strain on (the) relations between India and Pakistan, and have adversely impacted peace, stability and prosperity in the region,” the foreign ministry statement said.

Rejecting fears of visa denials to Pakistani players, the release said two of the 17 visas were issued in Islamabad, three in Wellington and 12 in Sydney, where the particular Pakistani cricketers had applied while on a tour of New Zealand and Australia.

Left out of the IPL last season, Pakistani players, fresh from their success in the T20 World Cup in 2009, were looking forward to this year’s auction. But with New Delhi’s position on Indo-Pak matches unchanged, IPL team owners were concerned.

There was no written communication but sources said team owners were reminded by some IPL functionaries of the difficulties they could face in case of another terror attack from Pakistan.

Kings XI Punjab, for instance, had hoped to shop for Shahid Afridi if possible. But even Afridi, current Twenty20 captain who had played for Deccan Chargers in the IPL’s first season in 2008, was not signed up at Tuesday’s auction.

Cricketers from Pakistan had participated in the first edition of IPL in 2008 but not in the second in 2009, held in South Africa. One Pakistani cricketer participated in the Champions League T20 tournament held in India in October 2009.