Pakistani cricketers unlikely to play at home any time soon
Pakistani players and officials celebrate after Pakistan won the MCC Spirit of cricket Twenty20 cricket match against Australia at Edgbaston cricket ground in Birmingham July 6, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Philip Brown
LONDON (Reuters) - A year ago, Pakistan captain Younus Khan delivered an impassioned appeal to the cricketing community to resume tours of his troubled country after their team had unexpectedly won the Twenty20 World Cup at Lord's.
Younus is no longer in the team, England now hold the World Cup and Pakistan are still forced to play all their internationals abroad because of the parlous security situation at home. They start the first of a two-test series against Australia at Lord's in London on Tuesday.
Pakistan's current isolation was precipitated by the armed attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore in March last year in which militant gunmen killed seven people and injured six team members and a coach.
No country has toured since and the prospects of any immediate resumption of normal relations remain bleak.
"The attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team on March 3, 2009 was the death knell for cricket in Pakistan," Sajjan Gohel, the international security director of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a London-based think tank, told Reuters in an email.
"For the foreseeable future it is impossible to hold major sports events in Pakistan because of the serious and legitimate concerns regarding Pakistan's security infrastructure and the growth of terrorism that continues to proliferate in the major urban cities."
International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive Haroon Lorgat said the problem was essentially political.
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