Croft: Shift Sri Lanka, Pakistan Tours

Former Test fast bowler Colin Croft has called on cricket officials to seriously think about shifting the West Indies' upcoming tours of Sri Lanka and Pakistan to the Caribbean. Croft made the call as the International Cricket Council (ICC) hinted this week that Pakistan's upcoming home Test matches may be played on foreign soil.

West Indies are due to tour Sri Lanka in early November, followed by a trip to Pakistan towards the end January, but ICC President Malcolm Gray said there are safety concerns arising from United States and British military action in neighbouring Afghanistan.

With the situation simmering internationally with no timetable set for any military action in or around Pakistan and Sri Lanka, I think that the West Indies Cricket Board should come out now, not wait on the next ICC general meeting in the middle of October, and suggest that both of those proposed next tours should be cancelled, at least in their present form, Croft said.

No one, especially cricket authorities anywhere, have the right to send a team of about 18 men into a situation that could become rather volatile at any moment, Croft noted.

My alternate proposal would be that at the very time that the West Indies should have been going to Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka should be invited to tour the Caribbean, Croft suggested.

The reciprocal tour by Sri Lanka to the West Indies in three years' time could then be undertaken by the West Indies to that country, all things being equal then, Croft said.