Pakistan tour on despite militant threat (6 January 1999)

6 January 1999

Pakistan tour on despite militant threat

By Kuldip Lal

NEW DELHI, Jan 6 (AFP) - Pakistan's first Test series in India in 12 years will go ahead as scheduled this month despite renewed threats by a firebrand Hindu leader to disrupt matches, an official said Wednesday.

"The tour is very much on, it has been cleared by the Indian government," Indian cricket board secretary Jayawant Lele said.

Lele's assurances came a day after Bal Thackeray, head of the Hindu militant Shiv Sena party, reiterated his threat to scuttle the tour.

Lele said Pakistan, who arrives on January 21, will not play any matches in the Shiv Sena-controlled western state of Maharashtra, including the cricket-mad state capital of Bombay.

During the two-month tour, Pakistan will play Test matches at New Delhi and Madras, the Asian Test championship opener against India at Calcutta and a triangular one-day series also featuring Sri Lanka across India.

Pakistan, whose last Test on Indian soil was in March 1987, will begin the long-awaited tour with a three-day match against India A in the central Indian city of Gwalior from January 23.

Pakistan twice cancelled scheduled tours to India in 1993 and 1994 after similar threats from Thackeray, who accuses Pakistan of sponsoring cross-border terrorism in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

They however played the World Cup quarter-final against the hosts in Bangalore in 1996 and returned in 1997 for the Independence Cup one-day tournament.

Pakistan cricket chief Khalid Mahmood warned last month that the tour could still be called off if the safety of cricketers could not be guaranteed.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has personally pledged to protect the visitors.

Pakistan will go home after the Calcutta Test and return to play the one-day series against Sri Lanka and India from March 19 to April 3.

The one-day matches involving Pakistan will be played in Jamshedpur, Jaipur, Visakhapatnam and Mohali. Maharashtra will host two India-Sri Lanka games at Nagpur and Pune with the final at Bangalore on April 3.

In other matches of the first-ever Asian Test championships, India take on Sri Lanka at Colombo from February 24-28 and Pakistan host Sri Lanka at Lahore or Karachi from March 4-8.

The final will be played in the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka from March 12-16.

Source :: AFP