Islamabad, Nov 13: Pakistan military chief directly intervened to salvage the tour of visiting Sri Lankan cricket team following the suicide attack in Islamabad, the interior ministry said on Thursday.
Mohsin Naqvi told the Senate that Field Marshal Asim Munir facilitated the talks with Sri Lanka top officials, when the Lankan cricketers showed weariness to play after the attack.
Sri Lanka’s cricket board said late last night that its team’s ongoing tour of Pakistan will proceed, following the high-level exchanges that saved the situation for Pakistan.
“Our field marshal himself spoke to their defence minister, secretary and convinced them and assured them fully of [providing] security,” Naqvi, also the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief, said while speaking on the Senate floor.
Naqvi recalled that the Sri Lankan team yesterday “decided to return after the bomb blast occurred”.
“Our interaction with them began, their board, players and everyone decided with great bravery to stay here,” the PCB chairman added.
“They had many concerns, but we tried to allay all of those,” Naqvi said, highlighting that Sri Lanka’s President Anura Kumara Dissanayake spoke with his country’s team to convince them.
Naqvi said that high-level security was being provided to the visitors.
“And now, the Pakistan Army, Rangers and Islamabad police together are managing their security, and we are providing them the same kind of protocol and security as they are our state guests,” the interior minister said.
The PCB chairman noted that the Zimbabwe team has arrived in Pakistan, and the rest of the matches will be held in Rawalpindi.
The series will now begin on November 18, instead of November 17 and Rawalpindi will be the sole venue as against Lahore’s Gadaffi stadium that was chosen as the original venue to host all T20 games.
The crisis followed after a suicide blast in Islamabad on Tuesday, which killed 12 people. It occurred just before the first One-Day International match between Pakistan and Sri Lanka was to start in Rawalpindi.
The Lankan team survived a terrorist attack in 2009 when the bus carrying them to the Gaddafi Cricket stadium in Lahore was attacked by gunmen in which six cricketers were injured while six Pakistani police personnel and two civilians were killed.(PTI)
