Sources in the Pakistan board confirmed that Sri Lanka has given its consent to play in the tri-series while India has expressed its inability to be involved in a one-day tournament.
"Pakistan had approached some countries including India to support the board in organising a triangular or quadrangular tournament in South Africa to fill in the gap left open in Pakistan's cricket calender with the postponement of the Champions Trophy," one source said.
He said while India had expressed its regrets as it was already due to visit Pakistan for a full series in early January, Sri Lanka agreed to a one-day tournament.
"Now the modalities including venues and dates for the tri-series is being worked out but tentatively it should start from September 12," the source stated.
Former cricketers had lashed out at PCB for trying to hold the series in South Africa which refused to send its team to Pakistan leading to postponement of Champions Trophy.
But senior Board official Shafqat Naghmi said Pakistan could not afford to ignore or boycott the countries which refused to send teams to Pakistan.
"We are not going to adopt a tit for tat policy because the decision to postpone Champions Trophy was in the end unanimous. People don't realise that Pakistan has still got the hosting rights and it was because of strong stand taken by some boards that the tournament was not relocated to Sri Lanka," Naghmi said. PTI
The ICC earlier announced that the Champions Trophy tourney scheduled to be held in Pakistan in September was to be postponed for next year due to security fears.
The Australians who also voiced concerns over touring Pakistan are scheduled to play a Test match in Bangalore, India despite the recent terrorist attacks which took place there.
22 Comments:
CRICKET AUSTRALIA has denied it would be hypocritical to tour India but not Pakistan later this year following a series of weekend bombings in India.
It is a charge from the subcontinent and the International Cricket Council that has already been laid against players from several countries who stayed in India for the lucrative Indian Premier League after a devastating terrorist blast in Jaipur during May, but are now refusing to tour Pakistan for the Champions Trophy in September.
A CA spokesman claimed that every tour was assessed on its merits. "We only go where security advice tells us is safe," CA's general manager of public affairs Peter Young said yesterday.
"The same question was asked about the London bombings during the '05 Ashes tour when we did not go to Pakistan in March.
"As far as London was concerned we kept the team out of there until security advice was emphatic that it was safe.
"We go through the same process every tour. It's as simple as that."
The question of touring India in October, immediately after the Champions Trophy, is compounded by Victoria and Western Australia also being scheduled to visit India from late September for the Champions League, which is meant to include the top two domestic Twenty20 teams from India, Australia, South Africa and England.
And Victoria is to be based in Jaipur, where eight blasts rocked the city in 12 minutes during the IPL in May, leaving 65 dead and more than 150 injured.
Victoria coach Greg Shipperd, who coached the Delhi Daredevils during the IPL, claimed that Jaipur had an excellent academy, where Greg Chappell was based as a regional coach, which would provide Victoria with the ideal facilities leading into the Champions League. While Shipperd said there had been concerns about the Jaipur blasts, and the subsequent terrorist bombings in Bangalore and Ahmedabad over the weekend, he doubted those plans would change.
"I don't think the fact that that happened there (Jaipur) will lead us down another path," Shipperd said yesterday.
"It's not something that I've discussed with Cricket Victoria or our team at this stage.
"Obviously if there was an escalation we'd change our view but at this stage we intend to compete in the tournament."
It is a view shared by WA coach Tom Moody, who coached Mohali in the IPL.
"We'll follow similar guidelines to Cricket Australia," Moody said. "Pakistan has a longer history of incidents than most other places."
Pakistan has had more than 60 major terrorist incidents over the past year compared to India's five.
Significantly the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, where CA gets much of its security information, has not upgraded its travel warning regarding India. It remains significantly better than the "avoid travelling there" warning issued about Pakistan.
This is despite nine explosions last Friday night in Bangalore, the venue for the first Test in October, which killed two people and injured 12, and 16 bomb attacks in Ahmedabad a day later which killed 45 and injured at least 160.
Australian Cricketers Association chief executive Paul Marsh said the bombings were concerning but the ACA "would continue to go through the security processes with Cricket Australia, as we always do".
Do the math
Anon>
A simple link to your source would have saved a ton of space as opposed to the massive cut and paste job.
Common sense would tell you the same influences in pakistan that have caused this turmoil have a similiar hand in events in India, including the recent bombings in Bangalore.
You don't need a Cricket Australia spokesman who watches CNN to give you an update on current affairs.
Common sense would tell you that the sheer scale and quantity of atrocities that have escalated in Pakistan have rendered it a nation on the verge of collapse but this according to you can is due to the encompassing blanket of ‘similar influences’. By your reasoning India should be deemed equal to that of Pakistan, so therefore must any place be that these ‘similar influences’ have caused an incidents. A bit simplistic don’t you think? Is the scale and quantity of terrorist attacks in India anything like that of Pakistans? More importantly is the political and economic infrastructure and the level of national security of current Pakistan equal to that of India’s? Or of the UK’s? Of the USA’s? Of Sudan’s? Are we to view all these places in the same light as venues for international sport because they have all been recent victims of ‘similar influences’.
What is you point exactly? That Pakistan and India are both safe places for an international sporting even at present? Or that neither are? Are you a Pakistani who is offended by this unanimous ICC decision to call off the CY?
Ask yourself these questions
Is Pakistan a safe place in its current climate?
Is India a safer place than Pakistan?
Is a responsible decision for a government to send members of its nation to a country internationally deemed volatile?
I don’t think you have read through all my post as you would have seen the reference to the fact that CA does not decide on issues regarding security. There is a division of the aus department of Foreign Affairs that draws its conclusions and then passes on its recommendations to the cricketing bodies. So what you refer to as a CA spokesman is just that – a spokesman and not a decision maker. So please if you wish to debate this serious topic have your facts straight and leave out sarcastic cheap shots.
The decision made by the australian government may even change if any more incidents occur in India before the tour is due to start but I get the feeling that even this would not please the author of this site, who has taken an anti-australian bias with no basis or constency. I sense a hidden agenda behind this with a deep grudge and insecurity.
Anon> you say:
"By your reasoning India should be deemed equal to that of Pakistan,"
It is not by my reasoning but that of those who give into terrorism.
By not traveling to one nation due to the security fears caused by bomb blasts any alternate venue that have bombs going off carry similar perils.
As simplistic as it sounds a bomb is a bomb and nothing changes that.
As a Sri Lankan I went to school and survived through 1996 a year which Sri Lanka was deemed unsafe to travel to, the Australians boycotted a world cup fixture and influenced other teams not to participate. Unless you live in Pakistan or have lived in a country where it has been branded as a country "on the verge of collapse" by a few outsiders – you wont know what the citizens of that nation feel.
Australian sportsman have a duty to their nation, their soldiers who are serving in Iraq, we as citizens living in a world gripped by terror should not give into terrorist. Australia’s actions have ensured that the terrorist/extremist influences in Pakistan have won!
Well this is nice. How do you know what colour I am? And why do you call me an asshole? You are an aggressive racist. The reasons the australian tour to sir lanka in 1996 was cancelled was the proximity of the bombing to a hotel where the team was going to stay.
So your incredible argument is that australians are a 'bunch of pussies' because they declined to visit Pakistan and we should take the example of people in London who proved a victory over terrorism by riding buses the next day. The ashes tour continued despite the bombing so thats a bit contradictory don't you think? I have already argued quite plainly that comparing levels of national security in the UK to Pakistan in 2008 is ridiculously wrong.
Is this the typical sort of response I will expect to get on this site? Lack of intellect and gratuitist racist insults?
Hilal
Again this is the same reasoning as the rude person before. It is a nations moral duty to defy terrorism by sending a cricket team touring a country which is in a state of political and social collapse close to civil war. So the decision to stay in England in was heroic in that case?
You said it yourself that soldiers are the people whose duty it is to fight wars. "Australian cricketers have a duty to their nation"? "We as citizens should not give in ..." oh please.
(tbc...)
..."By your reasoning India should be deemed equal to that of Pakistan,"
It is not by my reasoning but that of those who give into terrorism.
By not traveling to one nation due to the security fears caused by bomb blasts any alternate venue that have bombs going off carry similar perils.
As simplistic as it sounds a bomb is a bomb and nothing changes that."
This non sequiturial sequence has me confused.
So you are not reasoning that Pakistan and India can be judged equally safe or dangerous, but rather a decision to not tour one country but another does deem them to be the same?
And even if it were dangerous to visit either country the australian cricket team should go because it is their duty to humankind to put their lives at risk in order to stand up to terrorism. I've never seen a CA standard contract but I find it hard to believe that this is one of the clauses in it.
Your utopian ideals are very, well utopian. You say you 'lived' in Sri Lanka and I won't aassume to know anything about you (unlike someone else here) - for all I know you could be working for a NGO in Darfour and are a person who acts out their ideals. But I get the impression and correct me if I'm wrong that you are now living in a place far from the type of dangers we are talking about. So excuse the perhaps confronting but obvious question to ask you, but if we citizens should not give into terrorism why aren't you back in your home country fighting for the causes there? Its none of my business I know but I'm a person who doesn't preach idealism and not act on it.
hilal you are exactly right but if we do decide to play in pakistan there is always going to be a risk and violence is escalating there, and the government is unstable. the tigers cannot get into colombo with ease now while in pakistan you cannot trust many and the threat in pakistan is no longer just crazy people, it's a group of barbaric extremists who've killed thousands of people globally, not just in pakistan. there are some crazy people in india like there is everywhere else but parts of india are just a mess and anything can happen.. if you're talking about the likeliness of something crazy happening then india and pakistan could easily be in the same boat, but terrorism wise, pakistan is harboring the most dangerous terrorist group known to man
OK now there are way too many 'Anonymous users' to address as 'anon'.
Anon with the racist remarks> Please refrain from such low life comments. Please stick to the debate and try not to attack the man behind the comments - I would hate to have to moderate these comments.
I am no security expert and neither are you. We aren't here to argue if Pakistan is safer than India or if India's large Muslim population may have an extremist element that may cause more harm to the Aussies in India than in Pakistan.
My point to you was the yardstick of measure; it appears inconsistent which open the debate to these theories.
Australia according to their current yardstick of measure should not tour any country that has bombs going off due to terrorism. The very same reasons they refused to tour Sri Lanka.
Both England and India have had terrorist attacks in the very recent past and it is a very insensitive move by the part of these authorities to be biased in their security assessments. The Pakistani government has the backing of the United States of America and is far suited to provide security to these players than India.
Below is an excerpt from Dileep Premachandra for the Guardian, UK.
"The decision to postpone the Champions Trophy – let's be honest and say that the chances of it ever being held in Pakistan now are as remote as BATE Borisov winning the Champions League – means that I will have to wait a few more months to cross the border again. But this isn't about personal disappointment; it's about how an entire nation has been stereotyped and isolated.
When I first heard the news, I wanted to know what Osman thought of the decision. By far the most eloquent voice on matters pertaining to Asian cricket, he didn't disappoint. "What more could Pakistan have done?" he asked in his column. "Nothing. The security arrangements, by many accounts, were outstanding. FICA's [the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations] chief is supposed to have told the PCB [Pakistan Cricket Board] that they were the best arrangements he had seen. The Asia Cup was held recently without so much as a beep on the many metal detectors and scanners placed at stadiums. No, the question is not what Pakistan could have done, for they did everything."
"f you tell a lie enough times, people will believe it to be the gospel. The decision not to play in Pakistan wasn't really about security."
read on..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/29/australiacricketteam.englandcricketteam?gusrc=rss&feed=sport
Anon1>
Put this into sequence - if you stopped taking the train in Madrid after the train bombings would you not consider that a victory in the minds of those who carried out those attacks?
Then, also put this into sequence.
It really doesn't matter who the security experts are it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that no company or individual will put their neck on the line and send a team to Pakistan regardless of how reassured they genuinely feel.
Would it be fair if everyone boycotted Spain after those bus bombings? You live in a nation where terror could be a everyday reality, you should give the Australian in you a break and put your stereotypical views of Pakistan and Asia aside. This is bigger than that trivial rubbish, Cricket shouldn't suffer at the hands of terrorist.
Hilal I'm replying to the second last post which I guess if for me. this anon business is confusing but as I travel a lot for my work I cant seem to long in any other way.
"I am no security expert and neither are you."
No of course not thats why the Aus government uses trained qualified people to do it. But you seem to think you are able to talk about 'yardsticks' nonetheless.
"Australia according to their current yardstick of measure should not tour any country that has bombs going off due to terrorism"
No they have never said that at all. Otherwise they would have called of the ashes tour. You're just giving a personal interpretation and clumping completely different circumstnces into one basket. This is just a repetition of all thats been said before.
"We aren't here to argue if Pakistan is safer than India or if India's large Muslim population may have an extremist element that may cause more harm to the Aussies in India than in Pakistan"
Well that's exactly what I came to to argue, and thats what the CA decision is entirely based on which is what I've tried to make obvious here. Shall I repost those security reports from Paksitan again? Those are not my opinion of the state of Pakistan by the way the are factual data provided by a French NGO
Circumstances change. You can post as many opinions as you like to try an support you altruistic campaign and I can post quotes to basically repeat what I'm saying but I really haven't got the time nor inclination. You have a biased paranoid idea that there is anit-asian plot behind all this. All I've tried to do is present a rational side to all of this. Something you clain a few racist westerners have made up is the reality of Pakistan. "Pakistan has US backing" You really are not living in this world- how much effective US backing have you seen in the last few years
You've even brought the Madrid bombing into all of this? You're confluting different issues- one is a section of society showing bravery by carrying on with their lives after disaster, the other is the question of obliging a national sporting team to actively fight a moral and physical war.
I can see theres no getting through the here so I'll leave you to your personally slanted 'historical archive and educational tool'
Anon when you post a comment you can choose to either leave a comment as anonymous or enter your name and website regardless of your locale.
I will address your rebuttal in full, time permitting, later today. Thank you for the comments and various insights.
That comment was actually for an Australian who resides in Spain unless you are him it is not directed at you. Unless of course you are responding on his behalf?
Every inch of this blog is tracked and as a result it's not hard to determine who leaves these comments.
Have you forgotten that the Asia Cup took place in Pakistan and featured 6 international teams?
Don’t be quick to dismiss other opinions and expect yours to be heard. The article published by the Guardian is full of fact – read it.
I doubt any security establishment will put their business at risk by giving Pakistan a green light. After all they run a business and get paid regardless of whether Australia chooses to travel or not.
So the Australian security assessment is NOT the - be all end all - of this debate.
My point to you in regards to the yardstick of measure was why wasn't there a security assessment of London during the Ashes tour? Is it because the Australian players don't feel threatened in London?
The ACB cannot conduct an assessment on India and expect neutral security experts to give India clearance. If India was also deemd unsafe it would be disaster for the well paid Aussies who have to turn up at India's doorstep for the IPL.
You said:
“Well that's exactly what I came to to argue, and thats what the CA decision is entirely based on which is what I've tried to make obvious here. Shall I repost those security reports from Paksitan again? Those are not my opinion of the state of Pakistan by the way the are factual data provided by a French NGO”
Nothing on my original post questions if Pakistan is safer than India, it is obvious you are directing your argument here from another conversation, perhaps on another forum?
The only statement mentioned on the original post is as follows:
“The ICC earlier announced that the Champions Trophy tourney scheduled to be held in Pakistan in September was to be postponed for next year due to security fears.
The Australians who also voiced concerns over touring Pakistan are scheduled to play a Test match in Bangalore, India despite the recent terrorist attacks which took place there.”
As a rebuttal to the above you copied and pasted 10 years of Pakistan’s security situation based on a NGO.
Nowhere in my post did I mention any Anti-Asian sentiments. All I’ve stated is that Australia is biased in their security assessments and they should evaluate India just as closely as they did Pakistan and Sri Lanka, by not traveling to Pakistan they have given into terrorism.
It would be silly to state that I think there is an “anti-asian plot” because I question how traveling to Bangalore India (Asian country) is safe when you had scores dead and countless bombs going off. Many security experts have tied the individuals behind attacks in Pakistan and India to the same source, just not the Aussies because the IPL season is around the corner.
Who is selfish again?
Again the Madrid bombing statement is for an individual who resides in Spain, who is of Australian origin and thinks he has every argument and theory figured out from reading the papers. I on the other hand know people who live and work in Pakistan and carry on a normal existence there for 27+ years.
I know you're not a Sri Lankan you just spend time with a few so you can watch free cricket and as a result I dont expect you to know; This blog was actually noted as a matter of national importance recently in Sri Lanka and the message above which you belittle is more a notice to anyone with questions in regards to copyright. I didn’t expect you to know any of that. Why should you? Personally slanted it is not..
Ha ha! Hilal I think YC is doing immortal's dirty work now! LOL!
Aussies responsible for Champions Trophy’s postponement: Atherton
LONDON: Former England cricket captain Michael Atherton said that Australian cricketers are responsible for postponement of the Champions Trophy in Pakistan.
He said that the Australian cricketers association raised questions before the Champions Trophy saying there is a security issue in the Asian country while the ICC had given green signal for the event.
Mike Atherton wrote in his column that when the Australian cricketers do not want to tour Pakistan then they begin propaganda that Pakistan is not a safe place.
He further said that if the match is held in India then they do not see any danger. Despite bomb blasts in an Indian city of Jaipur they did not refuse to tour India as they get an opportunity of earning wealth through marketing there.
Atherton said that this is their dual policy and only because of them, cricketers of other countries also expressed concerns. Thus the Champions Trophy was made a target of these cricketers’ own interests and this event was postponed.
TheNews
Security doubts 'beyond logic' - PCB
Osman Samiuddin
August 20, 2008
The Australian Cricketers' Association (ACA) may have told its players not to tour Pakistan for the Champions Trophy in September, but concerns are growing in Pakistan that the decision was made based on hasty, possibly inaccurate security assessments.
An increasingly exasperated Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has questioned the wisdom behind the ACA's decision and particularly the information on which it was based. "All we can do logically about the situation, we have done," Shafqat Naghmi, chief operating officer told Cricinfo. "This is now beyond logic. If they are haunted by horror stories then there is little more we can do."
The frustration is understandable, given the lengths to which the PCB has gone to address various security concerns. Cricinfo has learnt that a lot of importance was given to Reg Dickason private security assessment of venues by Australian and New Zealand players, even though his was a whistle-stop tour of venues during the Asia Cup in June.
Dickason, hired by Cricket Australia, New Zealand Cricket and the ECB, provided, broadly, "a very negative report based on a one-day stay in Karachi simply advising them not to tour" according to an official involved in the recent meetings between the ICC task force and Australian players.
The PCB is particularly unhappy for they feel the more comprehensive and accurate assessment of the situation is provided by Nicholls-Steyn, security consultants hired by the ICC who have been analyzing the on-ground situation in Pakistan for several months. The appointment of the firm itself was a recommendation of an earlier ICC security assessment, the Janusian report, carried out in the first week of June.
That report, based on a two-day stay in Pakistan, found several concerns, though one of them was the contention that as cricket was a 'western game', it constituted a valid target for extremists. But their key recommendation was the presence of a security team permanently in Pakistan to properly assess the situation, one which the Pakistan board readily accepted. Thus, Nicholls-Steyn came into the picture.
Since then Nicholls-Steyn has worked assiduously with a number of relevant stakeholders to paint an accurate picture of what is happening in Pakistan. Led by Bruce Spargo, they have held briefings not just with police and interior ministry representatives - as most security firms do - but with a much broader network of security, military and intelligence officials.
"For example, they met men with hands-on experience of the Afghan situation, with real connections and people who know what is going on in the country and the various threats," Naghmi said. "They were told there is no feasible threat to the tournament."
Unlike the Dickason report, the Nicholls-Steyn assessment was discussed at the ICC annual meeting at the end of June. Minor concerns were discussed and immediately addressed by the PCB and the interior ministry. The Asia Cup in June and July provided a good dress rehearsal for security arrangements and Nicholls-Steyn were more than content, claiming the arrangements to be "beyond our own expectations." Such were the arrangements that even the ICC task force, including FICA chief Tim May, are said to have been impressed.
Even before the task force was created, however, the concern had already shifted to whether such elaborate arrangements can be sustained and delivered during the tournament itself, with May leading the questioning. "It appears that no matter what he [Bruce Sprago] says, Tim May questions the ability of the Pakistan authorities to deliver the 'Plan'," said an official who attended the meetings between Australian players and the task force.
While in Pakistan, May suggested organizing two practice matches on consecutive days between local teams to get a clearer picture of the arrangements in action. The PCB agreed even to this, sending out an email to the concerned boards a week ago but they have yet to receive a reply.
Thus, less than a month before it starts, the status of the tournament remains in limbo. Fear and paranoia is such that when a Pakistani police official spoke of a contingency plan in case of a rocket launch attack during meetings with the task force, he was immediately asked whether he was expecting one.
Osman Samiuddin is Pakistan editor of Cricinfo
Pakistan is safe enough for Geoff Lawson the Australian to reside in but not safe enough for any other Aussie.
Thought I'd post another comment here given the recent incidents in Pakistan and India. I have trouble understanding the thread of posts here - some comments must have been delete - so I will try to pick out what I think is addressed to me.
"Have you forgotten that the Asia Cup took place in Pakistan and featured 6 international teams?
Firstly the point wasn't whether CA can be advised that Pakistan is safe to hold the Asia cup but rather if it safe for the AUSTRALIAN team to tour a country where terrorist attacks are aimed at nations which are deemed enemies by the very perpetrators, Why is this concept so hard for people to understand?
The Marriot Hotel anyone??
The choice to go to India they say is based on the fact that a similar level of risk is not present, that the Delhi and bangalore bombings involve domestic issues.
"Don’t be quick to dismiss other opinions and expect yours to be heard. The article published by the Guardian is full of fact – read it."
The only opinions I have dismissed here are the notions that CA makes these decisions soley themselves, and that incidents of terrorism occuring in different countries in different decades can be all classed together. Isn't that quite clear from my original listing of events in Pakistan or would you like an update of the list?
"I doubt any security establishment will put their business at risk by giving Pakistan a green light. After all they run a business and get paid regardless of whether Australia chooses to travel or not."
So by that reasoning Nicholls-Steyn must no be very concerned about their professional integrity (eg:Marriot Hotel?)
"Fear and paranoia is such that when a Pakistani police official spoke of a contingency plan in case of a rocket launch attack during meetings with the task force, he was immediately asked whether he was expecting one."
Paranoia???
And moving on ...
"Thanks to the Australian tossers the chances of the Champions trophy ever being staged again is over..Sri Lanka has no more Cricket this year.I have 15 pages of reported racial violence in Australia against visible minorities ranging of over a 70 year period by a Non Governmental Organisation..does that make Australia a racist nation? As mush as that bullshit you copied and pasted makes Pakistan a nation in crisis.."
As I mentioned before, there is a sense of biased acrimony towards Australia on this site. Why stop at only the last 70 years of Australian history? Go back up to 200+ and you'll find even more! But I don’t think you’ll find more than one terrorist attack and that’s what this about. No that I'd expect you to be mature enough to comprehend or care going by your post.
Time to go.
Former cricketers had lashed out at PCB for trying to hold the series in South Africa which refused to send its team to Pakistan leading to postponement of Champions Trophy.
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