September 22, 2008	Monday	Ramazan 21, 1429

KINGSTON (Jamaica), Sept 21: If West Indies’ scheduled two-Test cricket tour of Pakistan proceeds, WICB will send a young squad, says chief executive Donald Peters.

Pakistan has been recently troubled by violence and terrorist attacks, and Peters said senior players were reluctant to tour.

“The response coming from West Indies Players’ Association WIPA President is that players are not willing to go,” Peters told Caribbean Media Corporation. “However, West Indies Cricket Board is taking a new approach to things now and we did our own poll of players and we found that majority of younger players would go, senior players chose not to.”

After postponement of Champions Trophy due to security fears, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) unsuccessfully tried to organise matches with South Africa and Sri Lanka. Both teams declined and now PCB is waiting for WICB’s decision on sending a team to Pakistan.

Peters said since tour was not part of ICC’s Future Tours Programme, the board had to ask WIPA for permission. He said motivation for sending a team to Pakistan was to give players more practice and WICB will check security measures in place if tour eventually goes on.

“I understand certainly there is a security issue. Champions Trophy was cancelled in Pakistan but we were assured security system was well in place. If we were to go, we would have checked security system ourselves. We normally hire a firm to go check on security systems for us like we did in Zimbabwe.”—Agencies