November 15, 2003	Saturday	Ramazan 19, 1424

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LAHORE, Nov 14: Pakistan cricket team will not tour New Zealand in December-January if the Kiwis decide to cancel the forthcoming tour of Pakistan.

New Zealand is scheduled to arrive on Thursday to play five match One-day Internationals series starting from Nov 22 but the visit is under cloud after four Black Caps and an official decided to skip the trip citing security fears.

Talking to journalists on Friday, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) ad hoc chairman Lt. Gen. Tauqir Zia said that Pakistan would not beg New Zealand to tour but rather reply in the same coin.

“I have no two opinions on this issue. If they decide not to come then Pakistan will not tour New Zealand”, declared Tauqir.

The PCB chief emphasised that in the recent meeting of International Cricket Council (ICC), held in the West Indies, it had been decided that no country would cancel their tour to any country on its own.

Every country would convey their decision to ICC and the game’s ruling body would decide the matter, he added.

Commenting on the alleged threat which NZC received, claiming not to tour Pakistan in Ramazan, he said that threats were also received by South Africans but nothing went wrong.

PCB boss said that an e-mail was received by NZC threatening players, but no one could ascertain whether the threat emanated from Pakistan or from another country.

PPI adds:

WELLINGTON: New Zealand cricket officials said on Friday they will decide by Monday at the latest whether tour of Pakistan will go ahead this month after threats were made against players if the series proceeds.

Full details of the threat have not been released but New Zealand Cricket (NZC) chief executive Martin Snedden said it was “very direct - it is explicit about the Black Caps in Pakistan and a warning not to go.”

The email message “certainly threatened consequences if the team were to ignore the warning”.

However, four players and an official who decided not to tour had withdrawn before the threat was received earlier this week.

Craig McMillan, Scott Styris, Lou Vincent, Ian Butler and team video analyst Zach Hitchcock made themselves unavailable because of trauma from witnessing a fatal bomb blast in Karachi during New Zealand’s tour of Pakistan last year.

Heath Mills, manager of New Zealand Players Association, said members of the New Zealand team currently playing in India were “definitely shaken” by the threat, but he could not say if more players would refuse to go to Pakistan.

Snedden said officials were gathering as much information as they could about the threat and “until we’ve really gone through that process it’s a bit difficult to know” if the tour will go ahead. He said a decision would be made by Sunday or Monday.

New Zealand’s ambassador to Iran, Niels Holm, who is also accredited to Pakistan, described the email as “vaguely threatening”, the Dominion Post reported.

He said it was not unusual, particularly in Pakistan. “It’s the sort of thing that if you saw it painted on a wall you wouldn’t pay a blind bit of attention to it.”

Black Caps cut short their tour of Pakistan following bombing last year and the country became a no-go zone for other cricketing nations until Bangladesh toured in August this year, and South Africa followed last month.

Both tours came off peacefully although South Africa avoided Karachi and Peshawar on grounds of risk and the team was flanked by presidential-level security squads.

The revised New Zealand itinerary, due to start on Nov 22, also avoids Karachi and Peshawar.