AUCKLAND, Oct 25: New Zealand Cricket’s new chief Martin Snedden was pleasantly surprised by the Pakistan Cricket Board’s reaction when the Kiwis decided not to tour there after the Sept 11 attacks on the US, he said Thursday.

Speaking to the media at the launch of the New Zealand season, the former Test seamer said the decision to bring the players back from Singapore as they were en-route to Pakistan was “relatively easy”.

“It wasn’t a hard decision after what had happened,” said Snedden who took over as chief executive from former opera singer Chris Doig in August.

“But I was concerned at how Pakistan would react to it. I didn’t want to see our relations with Pakistan go sour. We rely on them coming here.

“It must be fair to say we haven’t always had the most cordial relationship with Pakistan and while our first concern was for the safety of our players, keeping Pakistan on side was important.”

Snedden said he was pleased with the “fantastic” attitude of PCB director Brig. Munawwar Rana.

“He took the official attitude that the situation was perfectly safe in Pakistan,” Snedden said. “But he also understood our problem and agreed our decision was ‘totally legitimate’.

“He would have taken the same attitude in the same circumstances. That took a load off my mind from an international cricket point of view.”

The recent ICC meeting in Kuala Lumpur agreed to allow neutral venues if the situation in Pakistan did not improve.

The loss to Pakistan cricket has been immense. Sri Lanka pulled out of a tour — a short replacement for New Zealand — and India refused to tour earlier this year, bringing a projected US$15 million loss in revenue to the PCB.

Snedden told the meeting he would soon be making a decision on whether the New Zealand women’s team would tour India starting on Nov 23.

England could be hit with an ICC fine of US$2 million plus compensation claims if they pulled out of the men’s tour to India due to begin next month.—Reuters