As the foreign players face the dilemma of deciding about whether or not to travel to India for the Indian Premier League cricket, they would have received encouragement from the fact that foreign teams have started arriving for the hockey World Cup
As the foreign players face the dilemma of deciding about whether or not to travel to India for the Indian Premier League cricket, they would have received encouragement from the fact that foreign teams have started arriving for the hockey World Cup to be played in Delhi from February 28.
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u00a0The Pakistan hockey team members alight from their bus at the India-Pakistan Wagah Border yesterday. PIC/AFP |
In fact, it would have calmed many nerves that the two teams to have shown greater security issueu00a0--Australia and Pakistanu00a0-- were the first to arrive yesterday. The Australian hockey team reached in the morning while the Pakistans checked in late in the evening.
The Aussies even had a training session during the day.
Aus IPL decision
Australia have a number of high profile cricketers playing in the IPL and the Australian Cricketers' Association chief executive Paul Marsh will meet with the players today to discuss whether or not they should head to the lucrative Twenty20 event which begins on March 12 or give it a miss this year.
While all the players will be able to make their own decisions, it is reported that the recommendation of the respective players' associations will be to miss the tournament based on a report by independent security adviser Reg Dickason. The report will stress that a terrorism threat to the IPL is 'real' and 'credible'.
"It's going to be a big decision because obviously there are going to be guys that might think it is fine to go and others that probably don't. But tomorrow we'll find out for sure where everyone stands," said Simon Katich, who played in last year's IPL but is not in the Kings XI Punjab squad this year.
The world's eyes are on the Hockey World Cup. The staging of the competition without any incident is very important for the overall image of the country. In many ways, a successful staging of the event will determine the success of other sporting events scheduled to be held in India in future like the IPL, Commonwealth Games and the 2011 ICC World Cup.
The terror attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore last year changed the world view on sports being safe from terrorist threats. The biggest challenge facing the Indian government during the hockey World Cup will be the security of the Pakistan team who received warnings from a top-level security expert that there is a genuine threat to the players' safety in India.
Pak threatSohail Khan, a high ranking police official in the Interior ministry who has worked with many foreign cricket teams as their security expert in Pakistan, said the Pakistan Hockey Federation should not relax at all during the World Cup.
However, PHF secretary and manager of the national team Asif Bajwa, said he was satisfied with the arrangements made by the Indian federation. "They have promised to provide our team with state level security so we are happy to leave security issues in their hands. We have come to India with a clear mind to promote peace and hopefully to play our role in some way to improve relations between the two countries," said Bajwa after his road journey from Lahore to Delhi yesterday.
Bajwa said the idea behind traveling by road was to spread the message of love and friendship. The road journey was long and tiring but Bajwa said: "Tiredness does not matter if our effort can make a difference in
improving relations between the two countries."
