Babar Azam and Tom Latham
The New Zealand team will depart from Pakistan on a chartered flight on Saturday, even as the cricketing community is angered by the sudden and unilateral decision to call off the tour due to a security threat.
Pakistan Cricket Board CEO Wasim Khan confirmed that a chartered flight will arrive on Saturday to pick up the New Zealand team. “What has happened today is very sad,” Khan said.
In a shock to the cricketing world and the Pakistanis on Friday, minutes before the start of the first one-day international between the two teams at the Pindi Stadium, New Zealand Cricket CEO David White announced that he was recalling his team after receiving advice . a serious security threat.
But the PCB chairman, Ramiz Raja, and the federal interior minister, Sheikh Rashid, both said the New Zealand board had not shared the security threat report with them.
Not surprisingly, Pakistan’s cricket community was furious and some former stalwarts flocked to New Zealand to cause untold harm to Pakistan cricket.
The Pakistan government and security officials are deeply troubled by Friday’s developments as apart from 4,000 policemen, commandos of the Pakistan Army’s Special Services Group (SSG) were also deployed for matches in Rawalpindi.
The interior minister said at a news conference that he had also tried to persuade New Zealand to play the match without spectators. “But they didn’t agree to it,” he revealed.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, however, said in a statement that nothing is more important than the safety of players. She said she can understand the gloom in Pakistan but the security threat is such that it cannot be ignored.
England’s men’s and women’s teams are now on a tour of Pakistan in October.
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