The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) reacted with shock on Saturday when South African cricket officials called off the Protea’s tour to Pakistan, citing security fears after a bomb blast in Karachi on Friday.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) slammed South Africa’s decision. ”They have shocked us by calling off the tour,” said PCB chief executive Ramiz Raka.
”It’s uncalled for and disappointing.”
The South African team was due to leave for Karachi on Sunday and the United Cricket Board of SA (UCBSA) called the tour off minutes before retired Pakistan great Wasim Akram announced that he would make a special guest appearance before home crowds in a warm-up one-day match planned against South Africa next week.
”The match has been declared a benefit match for old buddy Shoaib Mohammad and since Mohammad served Pakistan cricket, I wanted to pay tribute to him by featuring in the match,” said Wasim, a former Pakistan captain and the world’s leading fast bowler who retired in March.
South Africa was due to arrive in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, on Monday.
The warm-up match had been set for Wednesday against the Shoaib Mohammad XI, after which they would have taken on Pakistan in the first of three one-day internationals on September 26 in Karachi.
Karachi was one of two venues South Africa cleared only after their security delegation was satisfied by their Pakistani counterparts last week.
The president of the United Cricket Board of South Africa, Ray Mali, said the security situation in Pakistan had deteriorated to an unacceptable level and South Africa had no alternative but to call the tour off.
”The decision has been taken with much regret. We know how much the tour means to the people of Pakistan and it is also a tour which we have been looking forward to. But the safety of our players is our primary concern,” Mali said.
The decision was taken following lengthy discussions with the UCBSA’s safety and security consultants, the High Commissioner in Islamabad, as well as information received from various international intelligence sources following a bomb explosion in Karachi yesterday (Friday).
”Cricket SA (Pty) Ltd also consulted with the South African government at the highest level before making its decision. Based on that information and our consultations, the Board decided that the team’s departure to Karachi tomorrow would have constituted an unacceptable risk.”
A three-man delegation travelled to Pakistan last week to assess the security arrangements that were in place for the team. On their return, Cricket SA (Pty) Ltd decided the tour could go ahead on condition that the risk did not deteriorate to unacceptable levels.
”We have gone to great lengths to make sure the tour could go ahead, but the most recent developments have left us with no option,” said Cricket SA (Pty) Ltd Commercial Director Ian Smith, who was part of the security delegation.
The UCBSA have offered the Pakistan Cricket Board the option of playing the One-Day International and Test Series in South Africa or at a neutral venue to be agreed by both parties.
A third possibility, also offered to the PCB, is for the tour to be postponed to a later date when the level of risk in Pakistan is acceptable. The ICC has been informed of the situation and of the UCBSA’s decision.
South Africa would have been the first Western team to tour Pakistan since May 2002, when New Zealand cut short their tour after a bomb outside their Karachi hotel killed 15 people.
The bomb on Friday tore through the 10th floor of a building housing foreign companies in Pakistan’s violent southern port city Karachi late Friday but there were no casualties according to police and witnesses.
The explosion shattered the glass facade of the 12-storey Kawish Crown Plaza building, near the Karachi’s Quaid-e-Azam international airport, at about 8:30pm (1530 GMT), when most of the offices were vacant.
Karachi was rocked by a chain of bloody terror attacks by Islamic extremists against Western and Christian targets last year.
Two separate suicide car-bomb attacks outside the Sheraton Hotel in May 2002 and the nearby US consulate a month later killed 26 people, including 11 French engineers.
US journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and killed by extremists in Karachi in January of the same year. In September 2002 seven Christian aid workers were shot dead in their downtown office.
Scores of al-Qaeda operatives have taken refuge in the crowded city, which was a popular transit for Muslim militants travelling to Afghanistan to train in al-Qaeda camps during the Taliban’s 1996-2001 regime.
Several top al-Qaeda figures including Ramzi bin al-Shaiba, who is believed to have helped plot the September 11, 2001 terror attacks and channelled funds to the hijackers, was captured during a violent shootout in Karachi last September.
The city of 14 million, Pakistan’s largest and its commercial capital, has been riven by ethnic and sectarian violence since the early 1990s. – Sapa