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Senior Windies players reluctant to tour Pakistan

September 20, 2008

If West Indies' scheduled two-Test tour of Pakistan proceeds, the WICB will send a young squad, says chief executive Donald Peters. Pakistan has been recently troubled by violence and terrorist attacks, and Peters said senior players were reluctant to tour.

"The response coming from the WIPA [West Indies Players' Association] president is that players are not willing to go," Peters told the Caribbean Media Corporation. "However, the West Indies Cricket Board is taking a new approach to things now and we did our own poll of the players and we found that the majority of the younger players would go, the senior players chose not to."

After the postponement of the Champions Trophy due to security fears, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) unsuccessfully tried to organise matches with South Africa and Sri Lanka. Both teams declined and now the PCB is waiting for the WICB's decision on sending a team to Pakistan.

Peters said since the tour was not part of the ICC's Future Tours Programme, the board had to ask the WIPA for permission. He said the motivation for sending a team to Pakistan was to give the players more practice and that the board will check the security measures in place if the tour eventually goes on.

"I understand certainly there is a security issue. The Champions Trophy was cancelled in Pakistan but we were assured that the security system was well in place. If we were to go, we would have checked the security system ourselves. We normally hire a firm to go check on security systems for us like we did in Zimbabwe."

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