Zim leave for Pakistan tour

HARARE — Zimbabwe have left Harare for a high-stakes tour of Pakistan, national cricket association spokesperson Lovemore Banda said yesterday.

It is the first tour of Pakistan by a Test-level team since seven Sri Lankan cricketers were wounded during a 2009 attack by militants in Lahore.

Zimbabwe are scheduled to arrive in Pakistan today and play two Twenty20 and three One-Day Internationals amid massive security at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.

Views on the tour are mixed with Sri Lanka-born Zimbabwe coach Dav Whatmore upbeat. “I appreciate the significance of this tour to Pakistan and I am happy to go,” he told Zimbabwe radio.

But the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (Fica) said their security advisers were against the tour. A South African radio station quoted Fica chairperson Tony Irish saying: “Tours to Pakistan remain an unacceptable risk and teams are advised against travelling there.” — AFP