On Monday (September 9), Sri Lanka T20I captain Lasith Malinga and nine others withdrew from their tour to Pakistan over security concerns
Islamabad: Pakistan, embarrassed after Sri Lanka’s top cricketers pulled out of a tour to the country, has restored to cheap tactics of blaming India.
On Monday (September 9), Sri Lanka T20I captain Lasith Malinga and nine others withdrew from their tour to Pakistan over security concerns.
Also read: 10 Sri Lankan players pull out of Pakistan tour
The Sri Lankan team will reach Karachi on September 25 and play three ODIs before going to Lahore for three T20I matches and return home on October 9.
Niroshan Dickwella, Kusal Janith Perera, Dhananjaya De Silva, Thisara Perera, Akila Dhananjaya, Malinga, Angelo Mathews, Suranga Lakmal, Dinesh Chandimal and Dimuth Karunaratne have opted out of tour.
Now, Pakistan’s federal minister for science and technology, Fawad Chaudhry has said India “threatened” Sri Lanka players of being “ousted” from the Indian Premier League (IPL) if they travel to Pakistan.
“Informed sports commentators told me that India threatened SL players that they ll be ousted from IPL if they don’t refuse Pak visit, this is really cheap tactic, jingoism from sports to space is something we must condemn, really cheap on the part of Indian sports authorities (sic),” Chaudhry tweeted on Tuesday (September 10).
Informed sports commentators told me that India threatened SL players that they ll be ousted from IPL if they don’t refuse Pak visit, this is really cheap tactic, jingoism from sports to space is something we must condemn, really cheap on the part of Indian sports authorities
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry)Chaudhry was not spared by Twitterati and was rightly slammed for his comments.
Despite the withdrawal of top players, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said the tour will go ahead.
"We understand the situation the Sri Lankan board is facing and we know they can't force any of their players to come for the tour which still remains very important for us," said a PCB official.
"If this tour is successful, then just think on what grounds would the Sri Lankan board or even the Bangladesh cricket board not agree to play the ICC World Test Championship matches in Pakistan. Regardless of which player(s) are coming the fact is it is the Sri Lankan national team which will tour Pakistan from this month and that is what matters to the board," he added.
Most of the international teams have refused to tour Pakistan since a militant attack on the Sri Lankan team bus during a Test match in Lahore in March 2009.
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