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Last Updated: Monday, 22 September, 2003, 11:45 GMT 12:45 UK
South Africa consider new plan
Graeme Smith and his team
Graeme Smith's side pulled out on Saturday citing safety fears
South Africa will discuss a revised itinerary on Tuesday which could revive their tour of Pakistan.

The revised plan drops Karachi and Peshawar as match venues, limiting two Tests and three one-day matches to Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad.

Pakistan has threatened to claim compensation from South Africa for the cancelled trip.

The amount - variously put at between �2.1m and �4.3m - would cover lost sponsorship and television rights.

A bomb blast on Friday led to an about-turn by the United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA), which had decided to go ahead with the tour only a day earlier.

Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Tauqir Zia wrote a letter asking International Cricket Council (ICC) president Ehsan Mani to intervene.

"The ICC must keep in mind the loss Pakistan cricket would suffer due to South Africa's pullout," Zia's letter said.

"We expect ICC to intervene and instruct UCBSA to cooperate and take the tour as planned."

The players were worried because there was a safety issue, but we were ready to go
Mark Boucher
SA vice-captain
Asian countries agreed last year to enforce a boycott across the board on teams who refuse to visit any one of the four side on the sub-continent.

"We understand how much this tour means to Pakistan and we have always done everything we could to ensure the tour could go ahead," UCBSA chief executive Gerald Majola said.

"We will continue to make every effort to find alternatives that do not pose an unacceptable level of risk to our national team."

South Africa coach Eric Simons and captain Graeme Smith will also be included in the process and the committee will consult the South African government before any decision is made.

"We made a decision on Saturday, based on information from our security consultants who had also been in contact with intelligence agencies," Majola said.

"We will continue to assess the security situation and will look at it specifically in relation to the proposed alternative fixtures."

Pakistan players wore black armbands during Sunday's one-day international against Bangladesh and dozens of fans staged a demonstration outside the Karachi stadium.

New Zealand, who cut short their 2002 tour because of a Karachi bomb are scheduled to play five one-day internationals in Pakistan in November.

"We will continue to work through our usual pre-tour safety and security checks and continue to monitor the situation in Pakistan in the lead-up to the tour," said New Zealand Cricket chief executive Martin Snedden.




SEE ALSO
SA pull out of Pakistan tour
20 Sep 03  |  Cricket
Karachi blast 'not terrorism'
20 Sep 03  |  South Asia
Press angry at SA cricket pullout
21 Sep 03  |  Asia-Pacific


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