CricDigs Blogs

The administration upheaval in Sri Lankan cricket doesn’t appear to have had any negative impact on their plans to tour Pakistan in place of India. Arjuna Ranatunga had been kicked out for signalling the tour which I may add could well decide the future of international cricketing fixtures in Pakistan. However, there is still a foreign ministry clearance to be broken through and Pakistan are desperate enough to hope that everything goes on smoothly as it tries to salvage whatever cricketing image it has left. A nation really can’t keep its international political and sports image as starkly contrasting to each other as Pakistan is trying to do.

Are they serious when they claim that there is no threat to international teams as images of bombs being blasted and guns being sold in the open are being aired on TV (CNN, BBC)? The Pakistan Cricket Board is hell bent on doing everything to ensure the tentatively scheduled Sri Lanka series takes place as it also faces a serious financial crisis and the ICL looms large on its head, threatening to swallow more of its national players. Their very presence in international cricket is threatened as the void created due to the absence of international fixtures on their homeland. Pakistan is yet to play a proper test series in 2008!!

India’s withdrawal has further meant that even its neighbours don’t want to cooperate with it and if the Lankans do the same Pakistan could face severe isolation from world cricket. Concerned as it is, the International Cricket Council has taken upon itself to conduct a very stringent security review of the situation in Pakistan’s troubled cities before allowing the Lankan series to go on. Sri Lanka has agreed to replace India but imagine if anything even remotely unwanted happens, the cricket crazy fans back home in Sri Lanka are going to rip the skin of their cricketing officials.