South Africa depart for Pakistan tour

There's no turning back now for South Africa, as they finally flew out of Johannesburg to begin their delayed tour of Pakistan. They were meant to have left a week ago, but a bomb blast in Karachi temporarily derailed the tour a day before the squad's scheduled departure.

The Pakistanis hastily offered a revised itinerary from which the perceived hotspots of Karachi and Peshawar had been removed. The three originally scheduled Test matches became two, and three one-day internationals became five.

The United Cricket Board (UCB) accepted plan B, and the tour was back on, only for the alarm bells to be set ringing once more on Saturday in the wake of a bomb that exploded aboard a Karachi bus and wounded 13 people.

But the squad assembled in Johannesburg on Sunday morning, and jetted out at 12.15pm (GMT). Crucial to their departure, it seems, is the presence in Pakistan of UCB commercial director Ian Smith and police security expert Ben van Deventer, who were members of the delegation that visited the country two weeks ago to assess safety.

"We've contacted our security people in Lahore, and reassurances have been given for our safety," Gerald de Kock, the UCB's media manager, told Wisden CricInfo before the squad's departure on Sunday. "The players have accepted it. They were part of a conference call we had this morning with Ian Smith and Ben van Deventer."

The chief executive of the South African Cricketers' Association, Tony Irish, echoed De Kock's comments. "The security guys are over there, they say it's safe and we have to put our trust in them."

The South Africans have been promised presidential security by the Pakistanis. That should help set their minds at ease, but it will add to the strain of a tour that, even without added complications, is invariably among the more difficult on the international circuit.

"It will undoubtedly be a challenging tour," said Irish. "But this is a bold side and I think that's how they will approach it."