by Veena Gabriel
With every finger pointing at the involvement of terrorists from Pakistan,the aftereffects have not left the cricket world untouched. What with the reluctance of the Indian team to play in Pakistan, a feeling of being unfairly blamed is emerging amongst the Pakistani cricketers.
As per Rashid Latif, the former skipper, he is more than angry in the manner the Indian Government and Indian media is trying to implicate Pakistan. He has gone on the record saying that since Pakistan itself is the victim of terror attacks, it is unfair to blame it for Mumbai strikes. He is in no mood to take these accusations lying down and wants clear proof rather than blind accusations.
He has also sent out a call to all the Pakistani players to boycott the oncoming IPL and ICL series as he feels that in near future the extremists in India will anyway stop the Pakistani sports persons and artists from playing in India.
He has also urged PCB not to plead with the Indian team to change its decision and come and play in Pakistan. If they are not prepared to play here, even we should not go to India as the security conditions are same in both the countries, is the assessment.
He is also angry at the double standards of the England team when it decided to come back to India and play the rest of two test matches even after the Mumbai strikes but refused to come to Pakistan citing security reasons.
Rashid was the angry one while Wasim Akram took a conciliatory way out saying that cricket can be the common platform which can be used to diffuse the present hostile situation between the two countries and can help in bringing the two countries together.
