Pakistan envoy backtracks on tour statement (January 15 1998)

January 15 1998

Pakistan envoy backtracks on tour statement

AFP

NEW DELHI, Jan 15 (AFP) - Pakistan's ambassador in New Delhi said on Friday that Pakistan's first cricket tour of India in more than a decade would probably go ahead, backtracking from an earlier statement that the tour was definitely on.

"We are very hopeful that the tour will go ahead as scheduled in view of the assurances given at the highest level by the Indian government," Ambassador Ashraf Jehangir Khan Qazi said.

"We still have a few concerns about Delhi. But hopefully things will go as scheduled,' he added, amid a campaign by Hindu militants to force the tour's cancellation.

Qazi said the final decision will be taken by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in a day or two.

The ambassador had earlier said the tour would definitely go ahead. "The Indian government has assured comprehensive security cover and we are satisfied there will be no danger to our cricketers," he said. Later he backtracked, saying only that it would most likely go on as scheduled.

The tour has come under threat from the militant Hindu Shiv Sena party, which has vowed to disrupt the games in protest at Pakistan's support for Moslem rebels in the disputed region of Kashmir.

Shiv Sena activists have already caused the venue of the first Test due to begin January 28 to be changed, after they dug up the pitch at the original venue in New Delhi.

Khan's comments followed a pledge earlier Friday by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to prevent the militants holding the tour to ransom.

"We won't allow them to disrupt the games," Vajpayee told a delegation of top sportsmen seeking his guarantee the tour would go ahead. Vajpayee made a personal appeal to the militants to halt their campaign. "I say to them that you have protested. Now your purpose is solved and you should do no further harm. If you really want to fight, you should go and fight on the border instead of digging up pitches at night," he said.

The prime minister also urged the cricket-mad Indian public to put pressure on the Shiv Sena. "The public has to urge these people that matches, be they of cricket, hockey or any other sport, should be played in their true spirit and should not be disrupted."

It would be the first Pakistan tour on Indian soil since 1987. The tourists are scheduled to arrive here January 21 for a two-Test series, the Asian Test championship opener against India and a triangular one-day series also featuring Sri Lanka.