September 16, 2007	Sunday	Ramazan 03, 1428

KARACHI, Sept 15: Pakistan on Saturday assured a South African delegation it would provide full security during their cricket team’s tour of the country starting later this month.

South Africa are due to play two Tests and five One-day Internationals in a month-long stay in Pakistan. The visitors will open the tour with a warm-up three-day match in Karachi from Sept 27.

Security fears have surged in Pakistan after a spate of violence, including more than two dozen suicide attacks in the past two months. Around 270 people, most of them security officials, have been killed in these attacks.

The home secretary of Sindh province on Saturday briefed a two-member delegation from the Cricket South Africa (CSA) on the security situation in provincial capital Karachi, officials said.

“I have no doubts that Pakistan will provide us with the needed security and, God willing, everything will be alright,” head of the delegation Goolam Raja told reporters.

Raja and CSA member Sean Gallaher are touring Pakistan to assess the security arrangements

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has changed the venues of two ODI matches against South Africa from Peshawar and Rawalpindi to Lahore and Karachi. But it denied the CSA had asked it to do so for security reasons.

Peshawar has been an unacceptable venue for foreign teams because of its close proximity to the war-ravaged Afghanistan.

Raja said a final report on security would be submitted to the CSA. “It is difficult to say about our final assessments now but we will submit a report to the CSA and hope everything will be in place for the tour,” said Raja.

Meanwhile, Director Cricket Operations PCB Zakir Khan said he was confident that the FIH decision would not affect the cricket tour.—AFP