Karachi fans protest against change of itinerary

Roughly 150 cricket fans have staged a demonstration in Karachi, to protest against their city's exclusion from the itinerary for South Africa's tour of Pakistan, which gets underway next week.

Karachi, in the south of Pakistan, and Peshawar, near the Afghanistan border in the north-west, have both been dropped at South Africa's request, after concerns about security. The demonstrators responded with placards reading: "Karachiites are cricket crazy, not terrorists", "We want Pakistan-South Africa match in Karachi" and "Don't take away Karachi as international venue."

"People in Karachi are passionate about the game of cricket," said Nawab Mirza, a local member of Parliament. "They feel hugely deprived not to see South Africa play here." Karachi staged its first one-day international in 16 months last month, when Bangladesh were the visitors. But a recent bomb blast raised fears of a repeat of the situation in May last year, when New Zealand were forced to evacuate their hotel - and abandon their tour - after an explosion killed 15 people.

"This is injustice to the people of Karachi and we demand South African captain Graeme Smith brings his team to the city," said the president of Karachi City Cricket Association, Muneer Hussain. "We would make sure they play here without any trouble."

But Smith himself was unsympathetic to Karachi's demands. "Excuse me for being blunt," he wrote in his column for The Cape Times newspaper, "but I can't help thinking that a bomb intended for someone else will hurt just as much as one intended for you. To say the bomb in Karachi wasn't serious because it was a business conflict misses the point completely. The question should be about the general stability of a region."

The South Africans arrive in Lahore on Tuesday, where they will play a one-day game against City Nazim XI on October 1.