The Hindu : Cricket tour of Pakistan as scheduled: Sinha

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 15, 2004

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Cricket tour of Pakistan as scheduled: Sinha

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI, FEB. 14. Ending the uncertainty over the Indian cricket team's tour of Pakistan, the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, announced today that the series would go ahead as scheduled.

Mr. Sinha's remarks came after the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, convened a high-level meeting at his residence this morning in which the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, L.K. Advani, the Union Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, and Mr. Sinha were present.

The controversy over the cricket tour, which is scheduled to begin on March 11, has thus ended prior to the February 16-18 Joint Secretary and Foreign Secretary-level "talks about talks" slated to take place in Islamabad.

Mr. Sinha said that after taking all issues into consideration, the Government had decided that the tour should take place.

Asked about the dates for the Tests and the one-day matches, he said the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) would decide this in consultation with its counterpart in Pakistan.

"It's a good decision. We were expecting it," the Pakistan High Commissioner to India, Aziz Ahmed Khan, told The Hindu . "We are very happy. The cricket series will be an important confidence-building measure. Both countries should enjoy a good game of cricket."

Asked whether full cooperation would be provided on the security front, Mr. Khan said Pakistan had already done so.

He referred to the statements from Islamabad promising the best possible security to the Indian cricketers.

The Pakistan Prime Minister, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, in his telephone call to Mr. Vajpayee on April 28, 2003 had suggested the resumption of sporting links between the two countries. The call came days after Mr. Vajpayee offered his hand of friendship to Pakistan during a visit to Srinagar.

In the last five days, press reports referred to concerns about the players' safety and suggested that the Union Home Ministry was "informally" of the view that the tour should not go ahead.

On Thursday, the Home Ministry let it be known "informally" that it had suggested that the tour be deferred until after the Lok Sabha elections.

This information was given out despite the fact that a three-member BCCI delegation, including a senior Indian Police Service officer, is still in Pakistan assessing the security and other logistical requirements.

On Friday, PTI quoted the Union Minister of State for Home, Swami Chinmayanand, as saying that the cricket tour should be postponed till the security agencies were absolutely certain that no harm would come to the players.

He was also quoted as saying by a leading Hindi daily that India could not improve relations with Pakistan by putting the players to any kind of security risk.

Even today, Home Ministry sources maintained that a decision on the tour was for the BCCI and not for the Government to take. "They [the Board] had sought an informal advice on the security concerns of the players and this was provided."

In fact, the BCCI president, Jagmohan Dalmiya, had told The Hindu on Wednesday: "It is natural for all of us to be concerned about the security arrangements and that is why the BCCI has sent a three-member team to assess the situation. We will take a decision, in consultation with the Government, once we receive a first-hand report from our delegation."

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