Sri Lanka to tour Pakistan

Tuesday, December 23, 2008 -- Due to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the tour of team India to Pakistan was cancelled as per the directive of the Indian government. Now the Sri Lankan cricket team would tour Pakistan in place of the Indian cricket team.

The chief operating officer of the Pakistan Cricket Board, Saleem Altaf declared that after the Sri Lanka team complete their tour of Bangladesh on 14th January 2009, they would tour Pakistan and the itinerary comprises of 3 Test matches, 3 One day Internationals and 1 Twenty20 match. Altaf said “We thank Sri Lankan Cricket for confirming a tour in place of India. We have sent a full itinerary to Sri Lanka and as soon as it is finalized we will announce it.” The Sri Lanka Cricket chairman, Arjuna Ranatunga commented that his nation’s board would not think twice to send a team to Pakistan as the board was confident regarding the security measures present in Pakistan.

Earlier, the Indian government declared that, in the current circumstances it was not practical to send the Indian cricket team to Pakistan as it believes that the Mumbai terrorist attacks has links with Pakistan. Wasim Akram, a former Pakistani cricketer, remarked that “Deep inside we feel for the victims of Mumbai and hope such incidents do not take place again. We toured India in 1999 despite tensions and death threats. Now I hope the temperature will go down and cricket will resume because it is very important that India and Pakistan play each other.”