Pakistan on Monday threatened to sue South Africa for $3,5-million in losses from their cricket tour cancellation, unless the International Cricket Council (ICC) intervened to force a rethink by the Proteas.
”The ICC must keep in mind the loss Pakistan cricket would suffer due to South Africa’s pullout,” Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairperson Tauqir Zia said in a letter to ICC president Ehsan Mani.
The PCB estimates it will lose $3,5-million in sponsorship and television rights from South Africa’s last-minute cancellation.
If the ICC fails to intervene, the PCB will take South Africa to the council’s dispute committee to claim losses, Zia said.
The Proteas called off their tour on Saturday, one day before they were due to depart for Pakistan, in the wake of a minor bomb blast in an empty Karachi office building on Friday night. No one was injured in the blast.
The United Cricket Board of South Africa said security in Pakistan had deteriorated to an unacceptable level, and offered to either play the series outside Pakistan or delay the tour until security improved.
The PCB, however, has refused to play the series away from home and is seeking to resurrect the tour by changing venues and postponing it by one week.
The Proteas had been scheduled to arrive on Monday and play a warm-up match in Karachi on Wednesday ahead of a three-match one-day series and three Test series.
”We have already written to the United Cricket Board of South Africa suggesting postponement by a week and excluding Karachi as a venue. A copy of rescheduled tour has also been sent to the ICC,” Zia’s letter said.
”We expect the ICC to intervene and instruct the United Cricket Board of South Africa to cooperate and take the tour as planned.”
The South African pullout has triggered a wave of bitter disappointment across the cricket-mad Islamic republic, which has been starved of international cricket for 15 months.
A wave of violence against Western and Christian targets last year has kept foreign teams away since May 2002, when a suicide bomber blew up a busload of French naval engineers outside the New Zealand cricket team’s hotel. — Sapa-AFP
Tour to Pakistan called off