GEORGETOWN (Guyana), Dec 7: The West Indies will play Pakistan in a three-Test cricket series starting next month, but officials are unsure whether the matches will be played in Pakistan or switched to another venue because of security concerns, a top regional official said Thursday.
Chetram Singh, director of the Antigua-based West Indies Cricket Board, said both the board and the International Cricket Council have discussed the possibility of switching the series to a third country if tensions persist in the region.
The West Indies team is tentatively expected to arrive in Pakistan on Jan 25 and play in a three-day warm-up match before the first Test starts on Feb. 2. The board announced the tour’s itinerary this week.
“We have talked of moving the series to Bangladesh or Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. That would be linked to security concerns.
“If not, the series would be played in Pakistan as planned and that is if we are satisfied that everything is safe,” said Singh, also president of the Guyana Cricket Board. “Everything is tentative right now.”
The West Indies’ tour of Pakistan has once again been thrown into doubt after conflicting statements from the two countries’ cricket boards.
Pakistan Cricket Board director Brigadier Munawwar Rana said on Thursday that the West Indies had finally approved a tour schedule after initial security fears arising from the 11 Sept terror attacks in the US.
But the West Indies Cricket Board later declared that although it was keen to go ahead with the series, the tour had not yet been finalised.
A statement from the board said it was “not yet in a position to state whether the series will indeed be played in Pakistan”.
It added: “Although public statements have been made by the PCB that Pakistan is ready, from a safety and security standpoint, to resume hosting international cricket, this has not been independently verified to the WICB.”
Earlier, the PCB issued a statement saying the West Indies had agreed to a three Test tour, running from 25 Jan to 7 March.
It said the WICB had requested only “minor changes” to the original itinerary.
Pakistan, who will also tour Bangladesh in January, have been left counting the cost of not playing. New Zealand cancelled their scheduled tour of Pakistan as a result of the situation in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka pulled out of a replacement one-day series because security could not be guaranteed.
Those cancellations, coupled with India’s decision not to tour at the beginning of the year, cost the PCB an estimated $20m (£13.9m) in lost television and advertising revenue.—AP/APP