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	James Sutherland: “The safety and security of our employees must come first” © Getty Images

Australia’s plan to come to Pakistan Deferred - Read ON!

Australia have confirmed that they will not go ahead with their scheduled tour of Pakistan later this month due to security concerns. The series has not officially been cancelled but rather postponed, however it is unlikely to be played this year.

“We are very sorry that the tour could not take place at this time,” Creagh O’Connor, Cricket Australia’s chairman, said. “This was a difficult decision based on independent review of the circumstances prevailing in Pakistan at the moment. We wish no loss to the Pakistan Cricket Board and look forward to undertaking this tour in the near future.”

O’Connor and Nasim Ashraf, the chairman of the PCB, will meet in Dubai next weekend in an attempt to determine possible dates for the deferred tour.

“We are obviously very disappointed at this decision,” Ashraf said. “I guess there is not much we could do and we sincerely hope that the tour of Australia to Pakistan can materialise at the earliest opportunity.”

James Sutherland, the chief executive of Cricket Australia, said Australia’s busy programme meant it would not be easy to find a spot to reschedule the series. “There’s a couple of windows in 2009 and 2010,” Sutherland said. “There might be a little bit of massaging in order to make that happen but I guess that’s what we’re setting our sights on at the moment. The way our programme is at the moment, for Australian players, it’s probably unlikely [we can play sooner].”

In recent weeks it had become increasingly unlikely that Australia would go ahead with the tour as some players were reportedly unwilling to go due to concerns about ongoing violence in the country. However, Sutherland said neither the opinion of the players nor the latest bombings - at least 15 people were killed in suicide attacks in Lahore on Tuesday, less than two hours before the announcement - had influenced the decision.

“We drew some conclusions from our discussions with the government and other advisers last week that saw us in a position of really seeing that there wouldn’t be any other alternative,” he said. “We raised that matter with the Pakistan Cricket Board at the end of last week and left them to consider the implications of that over the weekend.

“We’re very disappointed that this tour won’t be going ahead. We’ve left no stone unturned in trying to ensure that the tour could proceed as planned but at the end of the day for us the safety and security of our employees must come first and we’ve been left with no alternative.”

Cricket Australia was briefed by the Australian government last week, however Sutherland said the recommendations of independent advisers had also been taken into consideration. “The starting point is to look at the federal government’s advice to Australian travelers to Pakistan and it’s not favourable,” he said. “The question for us is then to have a closer look and say, what are the implications for an Australian cricket team given those quite serious warnings that are in place.”

Adam Gilchrist believes the relationships between Australia and India cricketers will be boosted by the Indian Premier League after a season filled with controversy fuelled by both camps. The teams meet for two or three CB Series finals over the next week and the games will be Gilchrist’s farewell from international cricket.

He says the situation during India’s tour has “got out of hand somewhat” but he hopes the IPL will help heal some of the rifts, as players from both nations are thrust into teams together. “That’s where I see something like the IPL is going to be ground-breaking territory,” Gilchrist told the Sunday Telegraph.

“That’s going to be an opportunity for players around the world to get to meet, know and understand opposition cultures and customs. I think that’s going to be a very positive off-shoot of the IPL. Any world XI team I’ve ever played in there’s always been a great camaraderie in the rooms.”

It would have been an interesting scenario had Harbhajan Singh ended up in the same squad as Andrew Symonds or Matthew Hayden, but Harbhajan is at Mumbai and no Australians were drafted by that franchise. Hayden went to Chennai, alongside Mahendra Singh Dhoni, while Symonds and Gilchrist are both going to Hyderabad, where the Indian contingent includes RP Singh and VVS Laxman. Ricky Ponting’s new team-mates at Kolkata include Ishant Sharma and Sourav Ganguly.

If Australia’s players are available for the IPL this season - their involvement depends on whether the tour of Pakistan goes ahead - they will have six weeks to cool off between the end of the CB Series and the start of the tournament. Gilchrist conceded the home summer had been a difficult one for some of his colleagues.

“There’s been evidence that the players probably haven’t been able to totally represent exactly how they’ve felt,” he said. “It’s grown beyond just the cricket, it’s a business now and I think people are mindful of that.

“I don’t think the players can totally complain too much, though, because it’s a professional world and we’re the beneficiaries of that professionalism, financially and by way of support off field. The support structure around players is as good as ever and we need to bear all that in mind.

“The situation this summer has got out of hand somewhat. Hopefully over the next week we see some great cricket, the series will finish and we’ll all just move on and forget the almost tit-for-tat reactions that have been going on. Both teams are going to be extremely keen to get on and win this one and take a good memory out of what’s been an exhausting summer.”

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