Play it with those who turn up

The ICC board is expected to take a decision on staging the Champions Trophy in Pakistan on Sunday and Harsha Bhogle believes there is only one solution possible at this late stage - hold the tournament in Pakistan and play it with the teams that turn up. He writes in the Indian Express:

If I was an Australian cricketer and I read that my country had just shut down its consulates in Lahore and Karachi, I would be uneasy. You could tell me all you want but if I turned to my wife, or to my mother, or to my son, and they implored me not to go, if they said “must you?” I would be torn. I would ask myself if cricket was that important. And I know what I would do.

According to Clive Williams, a visiting fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University, it would be unwise for Australia to contemplate cricket tours to Pakistan as long as they have troops stationed in neighbouring Afghanistan. He also issues a warning about the security situation in Pakistan. Click here to read his article in the Canberra Times.

The presidential level of security offered does not mean much in a nation where the recent president was lucky to survive three assassination attempts, and the prospective prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated in 2007.