Sri Lanka refuse to tour Pakistan

PCB’s attempts suffers setback after Karachi debacle.

LAHORE:

The Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) efforts to bring international cricket back to the country were left in jeopardy after a deadly terrorist attack at a key naval base in Karachi left 13 people dead.

Pakistan, on Saturday, had formally invited Sri Lanka for a Test and limited-overs tour as scheduled in the Future Tours Programme. However, the recent terrorist strike has effectively ended any chances that there may have been for the tour to materialise.

PCB’s invitation also got a discouraging response from Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) Interim Committee Chairman Somachandra de Silva, who confirmed that the team will not play the series in Pakistan.

“We’ve replied to the PCB and await their confirmation,” said de Silva. “We’re not going to play in Pakistan at this stage and have offered to host the series in our country.  If they agree to play in Sri Lanka they’ll have to bear the entire hosting costs. We’ve also expressed our willingness to play at a neutral venue.”

Pakistan has been unable to host international cricket since the March 2009 terror attack on the Sri Lanka team bus. Afghanistan will become the first international team to play in the country when they start a one-day series against Pakistan ‘A’ tomorrow.

The invitation to SLC was the first time the PCB had invited any team to play at home ever since the Lahore attacks. Since then, Pakistan had been forced to ‘host’ its matches on neutral and away venues.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2011.