Calcutta: The Pakistan Cricket Board, which hosted Zimbabwe just weeks ago, is in the dark about an attempt by India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) to prevent the tour, as alleged by the home minister of Punjab province, Shuja Khanzada.

If there actually was something to it, surely the Board would have been the first to know from one of the federal/ provincial government agencies.

Also, why was Khanzada quiet all this while? The minister needs to answer.

Reacting to the claim made by Khanzada in the provincial assembly, in Lahore, on Tuesday, Board chairman Shaharyar Khan told The Telegraph: "This is news to me... At our level, we've not been taken into confidence on this matter."

Speaking from Barbados, ahead of the International Cricket Council's annual conference, which is on Wednesday, Khan added: "I cannot say anything further as this is the first time I am hearing of what was attempted to be done...

" Main to yahan bahut dur hoon from Lahore...

"Where the Board is concerned, we are delighted that Zimbabwe came and played two T20Is and three ODIs, signalling the truly welcome return of big-time cricket to Pakistan."

Khan's views were echoed by another top functionary of the PCB. "I have no idea of what RAW is supposed to have done," he said, when contacted in Lahore.

Khanzada, who belongs to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League, alleged (on the floor of the provincial assembly) that a very threatening SMS to "Zimbabwe's manager," when the team was in transit, in Dubai, was traced to a "RAW official."

The SMS, going by Khanzada's claim, was on the lines of no player would go back home alive if the team went ahead with the tour.

Well, the allegation appears outrageous.

Khan, who has been Pakistan's foreign secretary and has close ties with some of the Royal families in India, has been pushing for the revival of Indo-Pak cricket. Bilaterally, there has been a complete stop after January 2013.

Of late, even the bilateral relations have gone worse and there's a huge question mark over when the two countries would resume cricket ties.