Cricket news: Pakistan unlikely to tour England again - David Collier
David Collier, who is the chief executive of the England Cricket Board has admitted that http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 will be an unlikely option for England to consider in the future for a series in the country, outside the Future Tours Programme and that might be at least
another two years from now. In the aftermath of the statements made by the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board Mr http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ijaz-Butt-c64128, who alleged that the English players had taken bribes to lose the third ODI against Pakistan at Oval. The England team and management
were outraged by the allegations and held a string of meetings to release a statement, where they called for the chairman of the PCB to either issue a public apology for his statement or be ready to face legal action against him.
It is imperative to mention that the England Cricket Board had provided their facilities to Pakistan to host a series of two Tests and two Twenty20’s against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746, since they could not host a series in their own country due to security issues. Last
year the Sri Lankan Cricket team were attacked in the middle of a square in Lahore by highly-trained terrorists and the players narrowly escaped death.
Despite the spot-fixing allegations, Giles http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Clarke-c51120 who is chairman of the ECB admitted that it would not affect the relations, and his agenda as the head of the Task Force for Pakistan is to have a comeback of international cricket in the troubled country.
In the wake of the erratic statements by the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, however, the relations between the two boards have taken a serious blow. There had been some tentative plans for such a series to take place sometime next year as well in
2011, however, any such plans have been struck off the agenda.
"We have been through difficult times before with Pakistan, as we all remember," said Collier. "They'll certainly be part of the Future Tours Programme in the future, [although] it's not for a few years that Pakistan are due to tour the UK. We are working
with them on a number of [neutral] games, but we have to give it time. Time is a great healer, but now and probably next year is not the right time to consider that."
Following the counter allegations made by the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, the ECB and the England team management held a meeting that got underway at 9 p.m. on Sunday night and stretched into the early hours of the next morning. Following the
meeting, a strongly worded statement was issued and released before the start of the 4th ODI. The ECB has promised to provide all support to the England players and take any required legal action against the chairman of the PCB on defamation charges.
When Collier was asked as to how close the series had come to cancellation he said that “all options” were considered, however, the decision to play on had been based on two key points. The first being, precedent and the second was that they owed to the
general public coming to see the match to put on a good show of cricket.
"It has been an extraordinary two to three weeks, and a very sad two to three weeks," he added. "A lot of people have been under an awful lot of pressure, no-one more so than the chairman of the Pakistan board, who has been very much at the forefront of
all of the response from the [PCB]. He's done a lot of travelling during that period, so that is the sympathy that we have,” Collier explained.
The most important thing for Collier was that he felt integrity must be at the heart of the sport, and if it is being hampered by a cancer from within, then there certainly is an urgent need to get rid of it and show zero tolerance against it.
Tags: