South Africa reluctant to play Pak

[SachDan]

By Neil Manthorp Published: 11:04PM BST 18 Sep 2010 The Proteas are due to play five ODIs and three test matches as well as a brace of T20s, the second of which was agreed to by Cricket South Africa to help with flood relief in the stricken nation. "To say we are reluctant is an understatement," one senior player told Telegraph Sport. "Nobody knows what the hell is going in Pakistani cricket and we feel that playing such a high profile series right now - especially in the middle east - is asking for trouble. "Maybe it's time for the ICC to step in, or for Pakistan to withdraw from the international game for a year until the mess can be cleaned up and people can start to believe in the game and develop a bit of trust," the player said. The SA Cricketers Association chief executive, Tony Irish, admitted that "many players" had expressed their concerns to him about the tour but was, for the moment, stoically maintaining a diplomatic stance. "The fact that there are now further incidents under investigation is not good news. This all needs to be dealt with urgently in order to ensure that a heavy cloud of suspicion and doubt doesn't hang over our series against Pakistan," Irish said. Asked whether he was aware that some senior players were extremely reluctant to participate in the tour, Irish said: "Let's hope it doesn't come to that." Pakistan's 'withdrawal' from international cricket may, of course, happen involuntarily anyway. With the ECB having ruled itself out of acting as a 'home' venue in the immediate future and the UAE financially unsustainable, the PCB is rapidly running out of options - not to mention willing opponents. Last week Zimbabwe was even considering offering Harare and Bulawayo as venues for Pakistan to stage 'home' games with ZC cricket committee chairman and former national captain Alistair Campbell suggesting that staging international cricket in the country before the country's scheduled return to test cricket in May next year was "a good idea." Zimbabwe is still scheduled to tour Pakistan for a five-match series of one-dayers to raise money for flood relief in January. After Saturday's allegations concerning the third one-dayer at The Oval, however, he was forced to admit that even Zimbabwe Cricket, as desperate as it is to shed its pariah status and reacquaint itself with all of the major cricket playing nations, was being forced to "think again" about its offer.

Playing cricket against Pak is completely meaningless. Hope both South Africa and Zimbabwe cancel their planned tours, a step in the right direction and one which serves these cheating Pakis well.

[Gunner_Mania]

The England and Wales Cricket Board pulled back from cancelling Pakistan’s controversy-ridden tour yesterday after it claimed it had been given insufficient evidence from the International Cricket Council about allegations surrounding Friday’s one-day match at The Oval. An anonymous phone call to The Sun had claimed that certain scoring patterns would unfold when Pakistan batted, and these were apparently matched — although an ICC statement actually said that the tip-off had proved “broadly speaking” correct. Suspicion is understood to centre on runs scored in blocks or “brackets” of overs. Betting markets are set on whether a particular target for a block of overs is achieved. The worry is that Pakistan may have scored slowly at certain points in the game, fulfilling the predictions . While the tip-off was enough for the ICC to launch a second investigation into the conduct of the Pakistan team in matches against England this summer, it was not enough for the ECB to scrap the tour. The ECB asked for the ICC to brief its 14-man management board, which met at noon by teleconference, but when examined, the ICC’s evidence proved weak. “They didn’t give us much and their information was ambiguous about which players were involved,” an ECB spokesman said. A member of the board said last night: “If the tour had been cancelled, I don’t think Pakistan cricket would ever have recovered.” Meanwhile, Gerald Majola, chief executive of cricket in South Africa, Pakistan’s next opponents in November, dismissed the idea that they might refuse to play. “We will be playing Pakistan,” he said.

[achilles]

They need to get their act together. After the terror attack on the Sri Lankans, they had very bad PR. But the current controversy beats it all. I feel sorry for Umar Gul and the other bowlers who got them the win, for their phenomenal effort might not be called "fixing". Who knows the truth! May God bless Pakistan.