KEVIN PIETERSEN, the most expensive player at last month’s Indian Premier League auction, is considering withdrawing from the lucrative Twenty20 tournament, due to start next month, because of the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan side in Lahore last week.
The former England captain, speaking to the News of the World, has said that he will “be consulting as many people as I can but if I don’t think it is right, then I will not be going”.
Pietersen was signed by the Bangalore Royal Challengers for a record £1.1m and was due to be with them for three weeks but he is now clearly having doubts about his personal safety. “After this final Test against the West Indies, I will be speaking to Bangalore, to the ECB, to my agent and to security advisers. Then I will be a lot clearer in my thoughts than I am now. Since the terror attacks in Mumbai we are all now more mindful of our own security arrangements.
“Hopefully, the security will come right for India, but if everybody pulls out of the IPL then it would be a disaster, a catastrophe and world cricket would really be on a down.”
Fellow England players Andrew Flintoff, Owais Shah, Ravi Bopara and Paul Collingwood are also contracted to take part in the competition but there must be doubts about their willingness to travel to India.
The cricket community outside Pakistan seems determined to categorise the attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore as a problem specific to that country. Reflecting on what was happening in Pakistan, Pietersen said: “I think, at the moment, it is unlikely people will be comfortable travelling there. It is very, very sad - I feel sorry for the Pakistan cricketers. I feel sorry for everybody in Pakistan but everybody thought sportsmen were safe, they thought cricketers were safe but obviously they are not.” Security will be upgraded for high-profile events everywhere but the administrators’ message is clear: the game goes on, from Mumbai to Manchester, from Brisbane to Bloemfontein.
Yet as long as Muslim radicals in Pakistan condemn cricket as a distraction from religion, the sport’s future there is questionable. The ECB has already offered to host Pakistan’s series next year against England in this country.
Whether Pakistan are really a case apart, time will tell, but cricket’s men in suits don’t have a great track record at averting crises. There were many who were keen to play the Champions Trophy in Pakistan in October, despite a critical report from Nicholls Steyn & Associates about security failings at the Asia Cup, which was designed to prove Pakistan’s ability to stage a tournament safely. As events in Lahore proved, their judgment was seriously awry.
Cricket’s first big test in the post-Lahore world is whether the IPL goes ahead. There must be a chance that the Indian government will pull the plug - with regional elections parallel to the IPL, the risks are high, for policing the cricket and for them to suffer at the polls should there be a terrorist incident at a game.
Cancelling the IPL would hurt India’s case for staging the 2011 World Cup, but such is India’s clout that only the most severe setback would drive the World Cup to its stand-by venue, Australasia.
“There is a feeling everything is ad hoc,” said Tim May, chief executive of Fica, the players’ global union. “Risks are assessed and then procedures rolled out. We need a more streamlined process, some standard basic guidelines. We need to take government advice and leave no stone unturned to develop best practice.”
ICC president David Morgan argues that the world governing body cannot be responsible for security everywhere, but it can agree ground rules to which all member countries sign up. If the ICC cannot unite behind this issue, then it cannot unite behind anything.
Source: the times
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