LAHORE, Sept 22: Former Test captain Intikhab Alam, has called the United Cricket Board of South Africa’s (UCBSA) decision of cancelling South Africa’s tour of Pakistan on the grounds of security as unjust and unwise and urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to take strict action to avoid such happenings in the future.

Intikhab told Dawn on Monday that he could not understand why foreign teams were giving so much importance to minor incidents of law and order here.

“Recently a bomb, which killed several people exploded in the heart of Mumbai, India, yet neither Australia nor New Zealand cancelled their proposed tour of India,” Intikhab pointed out.

He said that no country could give security guarantees to any one but Pakistan assured the South Africans of iron clad security.

Intikhab said that Pakistan team was a crowd-puller and if the others would continue the same treatment, Pakistan should give a tit-for-tat reply to those teams.

He said that ICC must play a role to curb this trend if the body wants to implement its ten-year programme.

“The ICC should throw its ten-year activity programme in  the dustbin if it can’t stop the member countries from adopting such irresponsible attitude,” Intikhab said.

Intikhab questioned as to who would bear the responsibility for the financial losses Pakistan would have to incur due to the cancellation of the tour.

He said that if other countries adopted the same attitude about playing in Pakistan, the day was not far away when the game would be completely ruined in this cricket crazy country.

He said that one of the major reasons behind the big crowds  in the stadia during the home series against Bangladesh was also because international cricket had returned to Pakistan after many years and the fans demonstrated their enthusiasm.