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If they don't come, we won't go: PCB

Source: PTI
Last updated on: November 30, 2008 15:41 IST
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Pakistan Cricket Board chief Ijaz Butt warned that teams like England and Australia would end up splitting the world of cricket if they shun the sub-continent because of the security situation.

England left their tour of India abandoning the last two one-dayers and Butt, whose country has suffered from teams refusing to tour, said staying away from the sub-continent is not the answer.

"If certain countries play separately with two sets of rules, it will be a dangerous situation. It's a mutual thing. If they don't come, we won't go. You cannot have separate pockets with England only playing Australia," the PCB chairman told the BBC.

"To continue to not participate in cricket in this part of the world and in India and Sri Lanka, then it will be very difficult," Butt said.

Such a polarisation would spell doom for the International Cricket Council, argued Butt.

"There'll be two sets of rules, two sets of countries and two blocks in the ICC, which would be a dangerous thing to happen.

"We have to agree something. It has to be with all Test countries. You can't have four Test countries playing each other and the other four playing separately as well," said Butt, whose Board is also worried that India's scheduled tour of Pakistan in January next year may not materialise due to security apprehensions.

The same reasons saw Pakistan playing three one-dayers against the West Indies in Abu Dhabi but Butt feels neutral venues is not the answer.

"We have to agree to something, and offshore cricket is not the only answer," he said.

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