Cricket Australia (CA) has confirmed Australia’s tour of Pakistan has been postponed due to security fears.
CEO James Sutherland announced the decision at a media conference in Melbourne this afternoon.
“For us the safety and security of our employees comes first and we’ve been left with no alternative but to arrive at this position,” he said.
“We’ve left no stone unturned, we wanted to play this tour and really the only consideration that we could have was to ensure that safety and security was there and to tour, and unfortunately we weren’t able to arrive at that level of comfort.”
“Together with the PCB we’ve been able to come to a solution that works for everyone.”
Sutherland said the decision to postpone was made with the hope of touring at another time.
“That’s not to say at some stage in the not too distant future that things won’t have settled down and we will be able to play in Pakistan,” he said.
“There are a couple of windows in 2009 and 2010, there might be a little bit of massaging in order to make that happen… but I guess that’s where we are setting our sights at the moment.”
Sutherland played coy over questions the tour had been postponed and not cancelled due to threat of a sanction from the International Cricket Council (ICC).
“There is a process that is in place under ICC regulations and we’ve done everthing in accordance with those regulations to ensure the best possible outcome for everyone,” he said.
Under ICC rules, Australia would have had to provide a strong case for pulling out of the tour or risk a fine of more than $2 million for failing to meet its obligations.
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