British authorities didn’t advise ECB towards Pakistan tour: High Commissioner

The British authorities didn’t advise the England and Wales Cricket Board to cancel its males’s and ladies’s groups’ tour of Pakistan on safety grounds, the UK’s High Commissioner right here has stated and promised to “redouble” efforts to make the T20 sequence occur in 2022.
Christian Turner, the British High Commissioner to Pakistan, stated the ECB determined by itself to cancel the T20 tour subsequent month and he shared the “deep sadness” of Pakistani followers.
“This was a decision made by the ECB, which is independent of the British government, based on concerns for player welfare,” Turner stated in a video on his Twitter deal with.
“The British High Commission supported the tour, did not advise against it on security grounds, and our travel advice for Pakistan has not changed.”
The ECB on Monday withdrew its males’s and ladies’s groups from the tour of Pakistan, citing elevated issues about travelling to the area. It additionally cited participant fatigue forward of the T20 World Cup within the UAE as one of many causes for the choice.
Turner stated he intends to verify England tour Pakistan within the later a part of subsequent yr.
“I’ve been a champion of worldwide cricket’s return to Pakistan and can redouble my efforts upfront of England’s Autumn 2022 tour.
“My thanks to all at the PCB (Pakistan Cricket Board) who have worked so hard in support of that. I hope that we’ll soon hear the roar of full cricket stadiums again. In the end, cricket will be victorious.”
The tour, which might have been the primary by an England girls’s workforce and the primary by their male counterparts since 2005, was doubtful after New Zealand pulled out of their limited-overs sequence in Pakistan on Friday citing a safety menace.
The England males’s matches, which had been supposed to behave as a warm-up for the T20 World Cup within the UAE, had been scheduled to be performed in Rawalpindi on October 13 and 14.
England’s girls had been additionally scheduled to play two T20I matches towards Pakistan on the identical dates as the boys.
The Pakistan Cricket Board has reacted sharply to the pullouts with its chief Ramiz Raja stating that he was just about anticipating the England determination after New Zealand determined to desert their task simply minutes earlier than a scheduled ODI in Rawalpindi.
“I am severely disappointed in England’s withdrawal but it was expected because this western bloc gets united unfortunately and tries to back each other,” Raja stated in a video message on Tuesday.
“We had one team in our target, our neighbours (India), now add two more teams, New Zealand and England,” he added.