political reasons particularly after the 2008 mumbai terror attacks which led to suspension of cricketing ties the two countries played one short series of three odis and two t20 matches in india in december 2012 but otherwise they have met only in icc organized events or the asia cup in the joint briefing shaharyar who was accompanied by his wife called dalmiya an old friend and thanked him for playing a proactive role in trying to resume the most soughtafter rivalry in world cricket i am grateful to dalmiya for hosting me here i am glad we could start the process again as per mou there will be 5 series between the two countries in 8 years i have come here to personally congratulate my old friend on his becoming bcci president and pick up the thread of cooperation my relationship with him goes back a long way when he was bcci chief and i was pcb chief and we jointly started the 2004 indopak series all this was made possible due to the effort of dalmiya and the cooperation between the two boards at that time the 81yearold former diplomat said he also recalled the tremendous success of the oneoff odi against india in the bcci platinum jubilee match at the eden gardens in november 2004 my good friend had wanted only pakistan to come and play an exhibition match i said we will do what is good for us and for them we had a wonderful exhibition match 90000 people watched that match everyone went back home happy he said im very happy with the discussions we had were going to continue talking to each other to move the process forward in a bid to revive indiapakistan cricket im thankful to my old friend mr dalmiya for the warm reception hes given him we hope to take it from here he saidfollow toi sports on twitter toisportsnews