From Zeeshan Mirza
Karachi: New Zealand’s sports columnist Mark Reason and senior English journalist George Dobell have slammed their respective boards for possessing double standards and hypocrisy towards Pakistan cricket.
New Zealand abandoned their tour of Pakistan on Friday over a ‘hoax’ security threat received by its government and security agencies while England followed the same suit, citing concerns about traveling to the region and mental pressure due to bio-secure bubbles.
Reason in his column for Stuff emphasized that Pakistan has been let down badly by New Zealand cricket through their actions.
Reason wrote that Pakistan cricket fans are showing ‘justifiable anger’ and this onus is upon NZC CEO David White and the rest of the cricket board.
Reason added that NZ government told not to go in the first place and after traveling to Pakistan and withdrawing with the tour will cause disaster.
Dobell, who writes for renowned cricketing website ESPNCricinfo, highlighted that ECB’s hypocrisy could potentially lose them cricket friends like Pakistan.
Dobell reminded of the bus and knife attack, happened in London, one day before the Pakistan-India clash at the 2017 Champions Trophy which killed citizens and numerous were injured. Despite the attack, the match and complete tournament was played in England.
“But if it’s important that life goes on in Leicester and London, it’s surely important it goes on in Lahore and Larkana, too. And what Monday’s announcement from the ECB confirming the cancellation of their tour to Pakistan sustained, was a culture of double-standards which appears to view some nations are far less important than others,” Dobell wrote.
Dobell added that if a country is unsafe to travel to, the Foreign Office first changes its travel advice but it has not changed. ECB’s own security experts’ advice has not changed.
He reminded that the team would have got same protocols which were given to Duke and Duchess of Cambridge during their visit to Pakistan in October 2019.
He further added that citing mental fatigue is out of the question as players had to quarantine for one day and play matches of consecutive days.
England didn’t pay back after what Pakistan did last year, saving ECB’s millions of pounds during COVID-19.
He then reminded of ‘Jarvo’, who breached security protocols on three occasions during ENGvIND Test series but what if he had been carrying a knife or hammer, he termed it as a failure of England’s security protocols.
