The bitter fallout of New Zealand’s abandonment of the tour to Pakistan continues, with the New Zealand Cricket chief expressing some hope of rescheduling the series at some later point in time.
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The fallout from New Zealand’s unilateral decision to pull out of the limited overs series against Pakistan continued. Just moments before the first ODI in Rawalpindi, New Zealand decided to abandon the tour as they had received a threat. The threat was credible enough for the team to pull out of the tour. New Zealand had arrived in Pakistan after 17 years but before a ball was bowled, there was massive controversy. In order to douse the anger, New Zealand Cricket’s Chief Executive Dave White has stated that New Zealand is open to rescheduling the tour at a ‘later date’.
“I think what’s important to point out is that for every tour we go on, whether it’s Pakistan or England or anywhere, that we go through a very thorough process covering security, etcetera. This was no exception. In fact, it was probably more in this case. I can’t answer that question at the moment, it’s too early. But we’ll assess every tour on its merits. We’ve got a very close working relationship with Pakistan Cricket. We’d like to think that over the next few days, weeks, and months that we’ll work through this to ensure that we play the content that we’ve missed out on and we continue our close working relationship,” White said in an interview to stuff.co.nz.
The unilateral decision for New Zealand to abandon the tour has angered Pakistan tremendously. Since 2015, teams have been coming to Pakistan on a regular basis. South Africa, Zimbabwe, West Indies, Sri Lanka, and the ICC World XI, in addition to the Pakistan Super League T20 tournament, were being held in the country.
There were reports that Pakistan might boycott the match against New Zealand in the ICC World T20 2021. But those reports have been quashed. Wasim Khan, the Pakistan Cricket Board CEO stated they will take the matter with the ICC.
“Ramiz Raja, the chairman, and I will be taking this up at the ICC level but also with New Zealand. It is something that we’ll be pushing to have a discussion more broadly. Because as I said, the issue we have at the moment is that people can unilaterally make that decision without any consequences for themselves. There are consequences for the others who are the recipients, in this case, it was us. Is it fair that that can happen?”, Wasim Khan said.
Kane Williamson, the New Zealand skipper who skipped the tour to Pakistan, has hoped that the effects will not be long-lasting. In an interaction with Sportstar, he termed the cancellation a real shame.
“Cricket in Pakistan is an amazing thing and so well supported. There is so much passion there. I think the guys will be gutted to not have started and played the whole series. It is a sudden thing that happened. I certainly hope there is no lasting impact from it because it is a special place for cricket to be. There have been a lot of strides forward to see cricket go back into Pakistan and play there safely,” Williamson said.
With the Future Tours Program packed and the coronavirus pandemic still causing havoc, it remains to be seen how the series can go ahead. New Zealand’s limited-overs series against India in March 2022 was postponed to the end of the year. With this latest cancellation, it will be interesting to see where this series can be slotted.
