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NEW DELHI, Feb 17: India have scrapped Ahmedabad as a Test venue for the home series against Pakistan starting next week after the visitors raised security concerns.
The Ahmedabad Test has been shifted to Kolkata, the president of the Indian cricket board said on Thursday. Ahmedabad witnessed some of the country's worst religious riots in 2002, during which around 2,000 people died.
President Ranbir Mahendra told reporters that a redrawn itinerary would be announced this week and the tour, scheduled to start on Feb 25, might be delayed by a few days.
Pakistan are likely to play a sixth One-day International in the western city as part of a compromise. The teams were originally scheduled to play five one-dayers and three Tests.
"We'll propose to Pakistan to play an additional one-day match in Ahmedabad in place of the Test," Mahendra told a news conference after a working committee meeting of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. "We expect them to agree."
The Pakistan Cricket Board said earlier on Thursday it would consider cancelling the tour if the Ahmedabad Test was retained. "We can't rule out the fact that the Indian board might not accept our request of shifting the Test match from Ahmedabad and the tour can be affected," PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan said.
The log-jam took a diplomatic turn when Indian foreign minister Natwar Singh, who was in Pakistan for peace talks, spoke to Shaharyar in a bid to end the impasse.
The Indian board last month proposed Mohali and Bangalore for the other two Tests. The initial five one-dayers have been set for Cochin, Vishakapatnam, New Delhi, Jamshedpur and Kanpur. -Reuters
OUR LAHORE CORRESPONDENT ADDS: The PCB is still awaiting an official communication from its Indian counterpart regarding proposal for making changes in the proposed itinerary of the Pakistan tour of India.
A PCB official told journalists on Thursday that "We are also listening news about the changes, but I can't comment on it unless an official communication is received". He also denied to comment when was asked if the proposal were acceptable to the PCB. "Let we received some thing in writing then we will discuss before taking a final decision", he said.
There were reports that the BCCI working committee which met on Thursday had decided to increase the One-day matches from five to six and shifted the second Test to Kolkata from Ahmedabad and delayed the tour for some days from scheduled Feb 25. The itinerary could not be finalised after the PCB had showed its concern over playing the second Test at Ahmedabad on security grounds.
