Parore wants 2011 WC to be shifted from sub-continent

Wellington:

Unhappy with the International Cricket Council's inertia, former New Zealand stumper Adam Parore feels the 2011 World Cup should be shifted from the sub-continent without delay after players were made the target of a terrorist attack in Lahore.

"The 2011 World Cup in Asia is a dead duck - it doesn't take much analysis to quickly reach this conclusion. The dreadful terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team in Pakistan has seen to that," Parore wrote in his column for the 'New Zealand Herald'.

"Playing cricket in the region was already seen as a major risk. Now, that risk is clearly unacceptable. The tournament will have to be moved to somewhere because it is inconceivable that it be held in the Asian cricketing countries.

"The ICC has taken little action yet but I'm sure it knows what the outcome must be," he said.

Parore said that not only just Pakistan, situations in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh too are not conducive for travelling teams.

"India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka must also be regarded as too dangerous to remain as hosts for this World Cup, and as cricket tour venues in general."

"It wasn't too long ago that a pile of Pakistani terrorists crossed the border and did their heinous work in Mumbai. It is very hard to distinguish between any of those countries in terms of predicting what dangers exist," Parore said.

Parore said the reason he gave up his international career in 2002 was because he did not want to travel to Pakistan.

Incidentally, that tour was cut short mid-way after a car bomb went off outside the New zealand team hotel in Karachi. "One of the main reasons I retired before the Black Caps' tour to Pakistan in 2002 was that I didn't want to go there.

"The security advisers to New Zealand Cricket told us it would be fine, but it didn't take too much research on the internet to decide that it was a major risk. As it turned out, there was a fatal bomb blast outside the team's Karachi hotel, and subsequent CIA reports revealed that Pakistan was a hive of terrorist activity."

Parore feels cricket tours to the sub-continent can't continue unless terrorism is wiped out.

He also said the Twenty20 leagues in India would feel the pinch as the world's leading cricketers would be having second thoughts on travelling to the sub-continent following the terror attack.