Tour under threat
Pakistani official in India to seek safety for his team
Posted: Tuesday January 12, 1999 02:52 PM
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Organizers announced Tuesday they would hold the first test match in Madras instead of New Delhi REUT |
NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- A visiting Pakistani cricket official met his Indian counterparts Tuesday and discussed a Hindu militant group's threats to disrupt a planned Pakistan tour of India later this month.
Whether the series will ever be played depends on Saeed Ahmed Rafiq's report to the Pakistan Cricket Control Board. It has been over a decade since Pakistan last played cricket in India, and almost as long since India has played in Pakistan.
Fearing the mix of political rivalry and sport could erupt into violence, Indian and Pakistani cricket teams usually play each other only in third countries, including Toronto in Canada and Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Cricket is the most popular sport in both India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars in the last five decades.
Rafiq was to inspect the New Delhi stadium ground that was dug up last week by members of Shiv Sena, a rightist Hindu party that has vowed to disrupt the cricket games scheduled to be played in New Delhi and Madras.
Cricket officials said the damage to the ground was minor. India's law and order ministry has promised full protection for Pakistani players.
Organizers announced Tuesday they would hold the first test match in Madras instead of New Delhi as earlier planned from January 28-February 1, Press Trust of India reported.
The law and order ministry has urged the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to swap the venues of the first two tests. The second test earlier scheduled for Madras will now be held in New Delhi February 4-8.
The rescheduling was suggested because New Delhi police will be busy with India's Republic Day celebrations beginning January 26, said Jayant Lele, a top official of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
The Shiv Sena, an ally of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party, has threatened to harm Pakistani diplomats if the series takes place, and on Monday said its volunteers would storm the New Delhi stadium to stop the play.
The Shiv Sena says India should have no sports and cultural ties with Pakistan until it stops training and arming Muslim guerrillas fighting a separatist war in Kashmir.
Pakistan says it provides only moral and diplomatic support to the guerrillas. India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two of them over the control of Kashmir, since they won independence from British colonialists in 1947.
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