South Africa's cricket tour of Pakistan to continue

South Africa decides to continue with Pak tour
KARACHI: South African cricket team on Friday decided to continue with their tour of Pakistan after the hosts assured it of top-level security arrangements following last night's bomb blasts on the rally of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto here.
    
However, doubts still remained over the team's playing in the final one-dayer in Karachi on October 29.
    
South African manager Logan Naidoo said it was natural that players were deeply affected by the incident and their feelings went out with the affected families.
    
"This is not a usual situation for them. They are disturbed by the death situation. But they have agreed to go along with advice from the team management which has assured them all safety precautions would be in place to take care of them," he said.
    
The SA team management, Pakistan Cricket Board and security officials met here to assess the situation when the visitors raised security concerns after a suicide bomber blew himself up to target Bhutto during her homecoming procession, killing over 100 people and injuring many others.
    
The visitors were satisfied after a fresh briefing given to them on the security arrangements for their remaining one-day matches at Lahore (tomorrow), Faisalabad (Oct 23), Multan (Oct 26) and Karachi (Oct 29).
    
But Naidoo said the South Africans would continue to monitor the situation.
    
"We will keep a close tab on what is happening in the country for the rest of the tour and if anything changes we will meet again with the PCB and security officials and reassess our position and than we will make a decision if anything has to be changed," he said.
    
Pakistan Cricket Board Director (Cricket Operations) Zakir Khan told a press conference that "we met to assure them they were in safe hands".
    
Zakir, however, conceded the South Africans in the meeting suggested shifting the last game to Lahore instead of Karachi and the matter would be discussed on Saturday at another high-level meeting in Islamabad.
    
The meeting will be attended by South African team officials, the Interior minister, secretary and security officials.
    
"If any discussions are held on the Karachi situation and match it would be known by tomorrow evening," Zakir said.
    
He also said the PCB and security officials had given them a comprehensive security briefing in which the home secretary Punjab had confirmed security levels for the team were being raised.
    
The South Africans said "we came to Pakistan aware of the security situation so it is not new for us. We were aware of the movement restrictions that would be on us and our security advisors had visited Pakistan before the tour and assessed everything."
    
"We know we have to remain security conscious all the time. Our own security people visited Pakistan and are continuously with us and keep us posted all the time."
    
South Africa had also abandoned its tour of Sri Lanka last year in August on the advice of their independent security consultants after a bomb blast near the team hotel in Colombo.