It’s normal life here, Pak coach urges CA

Agencies

Posted online: Thursday, January 03, 2008 at 0000 hrs IST

Melbourne, January 3:
Geoff Lawson urged Cricket Australia (CA) to follow a "wait and watch" approach before deciding on whether to send Ricky Ponting's men to Pakistan, saying the political unrest in the country will not affect sports.

"The problem here is you have to wait and see, but prima facie you think (the unrest) is not going to affect cricket.

It happens around the country a fair bit, but it doesn't happen at sporting venues. I don't walk around Lahore looking over my shoulder, it's a normal life," the Pakistan coach said.

Australia are scheduled to play three Tests, five one-dayers and a Twenty20 match in Pakistan in March but administrators and cricketers are concerned about the security situation there after the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

"Pakistan is the kind of place where you get this unrest and then get back to normal life pretty quickly. (Cricket Australia) have got plenty of good people there and they will make informed decisions, they always do," he was quoted saying by the Herald Sun newspaper.

The former Aussie paceman also felt that sometimes visiting teams go overboard while reacting to certain circumstances.

"When Bhutto arrived back in the country and a bomb went off in Karachi, South Africa didn't want to play in Karachi. This was an attempted political assassination, it had nothing to do with general life, general terrorism so that was an over-reaction at the time, I felt," he said.

An Australian security delegation would visit Pakistan next month to decide whether to go ahead with the tour.