Even Aggers points at England's hypocricy

Cracka wrote:I don't think it's fair to compare the situations in India and Pakistan.

Why? Whats the difference?

THICKEDGE wrote:

Cracka wrote:I don't think it's fair to compare the situations in India and Pakistan.

Why? Whats the difference?

Israel and USA are terrorist states.

*Buckaroo* wrote:

Israel and USA are terrorist states.

Ah ! Now it becomes perfectly clear ...
Must account for India's close "friendship" with both nations then!

Carry on ... here's another shovel to help you dig ...

THICKEDGE wrote:

Cracka wrote:I don't think it's fair to compare the situations in India and Pakistan.

Why? Whats the difference?

The people running the respective countries.

Merlin wrote:

*Buckaroo* wrote:

Israel and USA are terrorist states.

Ah ! Now it becomes perfectly clear ...
Must account for India's close "friendship" with both nations then!

Carry on ... here's another shovel to help you dig ...

err .. aren't you aware of Mossad's hand behind every incident ?

Psssh, security consultants from ECB said it was safe, BCCI already said they'd not demand compensation if the tour was abandoned. And the only threat in Chennai right now is from the weather.

JKLever wrote:

PlanetPakistan wrote:

JKLever wrote:As far as I can recall England have toured Pakistan as recently as 2001 & 2005/6 so I don't know what the fuss is about?

The minute England pull out of a tour of Pakistan fair do's but you can hardly call them hypocrites until then!

what the heck Lever

"Kevin Pietersen says he has serious reservations about travelling to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy later this year amid growing security fears.

"I've definitely got reservations - 100% - about going to Pakistan," the England batsman told BBC Radio 5 Live."

They had 'reservations' about going back to India too. As I said, until England pull out of a tour of Pakistan then you're calling them hypocrites when they haven't even done the deed yet! Especially as they have toured there twice this decade and not been shunted off to Sharjah

Give me a break Lever.

The English players especially KP didn't want to play in PAK due to security issues now compare that with what he(KP) has been saying in the last 2 weeks. Its almost as if he thinks the world has TOTALLY forgotten about the things that he said in AUG and September.

PlanetPakistan wrote:

JKLever wrote:

PlanetPakistan wrote:

JKLever wrote:As far as I can recall England have toured Pakistan as recently as 2001 & 2005/6 so I don't know what the fuss is about?

The minute England pull out of a tour of Pakistan fair do's but you can hardly call them hypocrites until then!

what the heck Lever

"Kevin Pietersen says he has serious reservations about travelling to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy later this year amid growing security fears.

"I've definitely got reservations - 100% - about going to Pakistan," the England batsman told BBC Radio 5 Live."

They had 'reservations' about going back to India too. As I said, until England pull out of a tour of Pakistan then you're calling them hypocrites when they haven't even done the deed yet! Especially as they have toured there twice this decade and not been shunted off to Sharjah

Give me a break Lever.

The English players especially KP didn't want to play in PAK due to security issues now compare that with what he(KP) has been saying in the last 2 weeks. Its almost as if he thinks the world has TOTALLY forgotten about the things that he said in AUG and September.

It was the ICC that called off the Champions Trophy ( or whatever the feck it's called) not the ECB.

As for KP's comments, I daresay he and the England players were saying pretty much the same thing this time last week.

Basil wrote:

It was the ICC that called off the Champions Trophy ( or whatever the feck it's called) not the ECB.

As for KP's comments, I daresay he and the England players were saying pretty much the same thing this time last week.

thats absouletely incorrect.

http://cricketnext.in.com/news/cowards-cant-run-cricket-ill-return-to-india/36108-13.html

PlanetPakistan wrote:

Basil wrote:

It was the ICC that called off the Champions Trophy ( or whatever the feck it's called) not the ECB.

As for KP's comments, I daresay he and the England players were saying pretty much the same thing this time last week.

thats absouletely incorrect.

http://cricketnext.in.com/news/cowards-cant-run-cricket-ill-return-to-india/36108-13.html

The first sentence invalidates the whole article

You are ignoring the direct quote(s) Basil. Please compare them with the quotes that i posted in reply to Lever's posts.

Why "even" Aggers?

PeterCS wrote:Why "even" Aggers?

Aggers is normally a fairly defensive writer

He is always inclined to get his knife and two-pennorth in.

Like a tabloid journalist with a grudge.

PeterCS wrote:He is always inclined to get his knife and two-pennorth in.

Like a tabloid journalist with a grudge.

And a knife. And some loose change.

I already got the knife in.

That's not a knife.

That's a knife.

Aggers' idea of a scalpel:

It's not a pretty sight.

What's that next to it, a mummified appendage?

It's a whetter.

I'll get a cloth.

There's no auto-eroticism to be had in cleavers.

India and Pakistan are two very diffrent kettle of fish.

Pakistan has a weak government with an ineffectual security force. It doesn't fill me with much hope when Pakistan offers to provide players with a "presidential level of security". That kind of security was given to Benazir Bhutto and it didn't do her much good.

India on the other hand, has a government with some sort of control. Plenty of terrorist attacks take place in India, but it's a masive country more similar to a continent in its scope. If a bomb goes off in Athens does it make you feel less safe in Barcelona?

Which brings us to the recent Mumbai attacks. These take things up a notch from a foreign perspective because Westerners were clearly targeted, as were hotels frequented by cricketers in the past. It sends a shiver up the spine, but it's not a gamechanger.

People were worried about going to New York in the immediate aftermath of September 11, but people still felt they could be safe in America.

England's cricketers feel safe enough in India to continue the tour in an altered form. I doubt they'd have felt safe enough had a similar incident taken place on a tour of Pakistan.

That's just the way it is. It's not hypocrisy. I only travel to places where I feel relatively safe at the time. I don't expect cricketers to keep higher standards than I do.

Hass wrote:India and Pakistan are two very diffrent kettle of fish.

Pakistan has a weak government with an ineffectual security force. It doesn't fill me with much hope when Pakistan offers to provide players with a "presidential level of security". That kind of security was given to Benazir Bhutto and it didn't do her much good. .

Bhutto was a political figure at a political rally surronded by 1000s of people, if you have ever seen a political rally in Pakistan then i am sure you would realize that its very difficult to control the crowd. Secondly she had lots of enemies who had given her several threats in advance including one assasination attempt a couple of months before the actual incident.

Hass wrote:
India on the other hand, has a government with some sort of control. Plenty of terrorist attacks take place in India, but it's a masive country more similar to a continent in its scope. If a bomb goes off in Athens does it make you feel less safe in Barcelona?.

India in recent years hass indeed been politcally more stable than Pakistan but your bomb analogy doesn't make sense because we are talking about the numerous unfortunate instances in almost all the major cities of IND and not "minor" places like Orissa or Assam(no disrespect inteneded to those who have died in Orissa and Assam)

Hass wrote:
Which brings us to the recent Mumbai attacks. These take things up a notch from a foreign perspective because Westerners were clearly targeted, as were hotels frequented by cricketers in the past. It sends a shiver up the spine, but it's not a gamechanger.

People were worried about going to New York in the immediate aftermath of September 11, but people still felt they could be safe in America. .

India's security capability is no where near that of the U.S. One of the India poster recently pointed out that in this decade IND has had more terror related activites than any other country in the world with the exception of Iraq(this is perhaps where you can use your "size" theory to counter the point)

Hass wrote:
England's cricketers feel safe enough in India to continue the tour in an altered form. I doubt they'd have felt safe enough had a similar incident taken place on a tour of Pakistan.

That's just the way it is. It's not hypocrisy. I only travel to places where I feel relatively safe at the time. I don't expect cricketers to keep higher standards than I do.

Cricketers have a job to play the game in different countries.

And what of Pakistan?
http://content-gulf.cricinfo.com/ma...ory/381473.html

England's decision to return to India highlights the double standards most countries exhibit when dealing with security issues

The show must go on" has been the refrain, and now it will. England's decision to return to India and get on with cricket, life and everything else is, on balance, difficult to argue against. Less difficult to argue against also is that the decision vividly illuminates the double standards of almost the entire cricket fraternity in dealing with India's neighbour Pakistan: that nobody much cares about touring Pakistan has rarely been more apparent.

All kinds of noble sentiments accompanied the break in England's tour following the Mumbai attacks. Terrorists must not be allowed to win. Cricket will galvanise Indians. Some said, f***k terrorists. Great, correct and emphatic noises they were, for who doesn't want terrorists to get f***ked?

But these sounds were mostly absent and generally less forceful through the last year, as Pakistan strove to make someone, anyone, come and play. [b]No Test cricket for a year, and less prospect of it ahead, and no Champions Trophy. The message was unmistakable: Terrorism must not win the day, unless the day happens to be in Pakistan. Here they can keep winning until this blighted country is taken over by them, by men it is not even entirely responsible for creating; here, whose people clearly need no cricket to cheer them up, offering the pretence of life going on as normal.

The reasons are both clear and fuzzy. For one, the minds that were so closed against coming to Pakistan are easier prised open by the prospect of money. Noble intentions aside, does there remain any doubt now that the IPL will welcome Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff, and possibly a few more, with arms, hearts and pockets wide open? Not that it was needed, but England's return has emphasised that cricket currently begins and ends, and breathes and earns in between, in India.

It says much about cricket's current money-lust that it has taken the horrors of Mumbai, an attack at the very financial heart of a country and an entire sport, for people to wake up to the problem. Only the prospect of India being unable to bring untold fortunes into players' pockets has prompted men such as Tim May, head of the global players' union, to talk of solutions, talk conspicuously absent as Pakistan suffered.

Pakistan can rightly feel aggrieved and unwanted. That sense will not be lessened by the realisation that the security situation in both countries is different enough to perhaps warrant different responses. At least it is very much seen to be different: the Mumbai attacks rightly leave India a victim of terror, but suicide attacks in Pakistan leave it a victimless hub of terror. There is truth to the perception, though Pakistani victims are plentiful, and to deny the problem in Pakistan is blind and dangerous. But details are missed: that cricket hasn't been targeted and that attacks have mostly hit state and military targets. Ultimately it hardly matters, for a bomb in India will do the same as a bomb in Pakistan.




Much of Pakistan's hopes of returning to the fold depend on the ICC, an organisation traditionally possessed of the backbone of a jellyfish, the moral substance of a loan shark, and a collective nous less than that of the three stooges









But some hope can be drawn from England's decision. A precedent has been set, one Pakistan will use next time they are hosts: "If you came to India, why not to Pakistan?" Sadly for Pakistan, much of the basis for that hope rests on the ICC, an organisation traditionally possessed of the backbone of a jellyfish, the moral substance of a loan shark, and a collective nous less than that of the three stooges.

Terrorism is not going anywhere soon. Similar situations are likely to arise again. Some teams feel comfortable touring other countries where there has been an attack, others don't. Australia staying on in England during the 7/7 attacks, South Africa leaving Sri Lanka a year later after a blast (and India staying on), Australia not coming to Pakistan two months before an incident-free Asia Cup, Australian and South African players staying on at the IPL after the Jaipur blasts, England not wanting to travel to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy but returning to India. Even if in some cases the hypocrisy has been blatant, it stands to some reason that different countries provide different levels - or perceptions - of threat to other sides.

Often different parties view the same situation differently. One of the issues that particularly grated with Pakistan over the postponement of the Champions Trophy was that the report of the ICC-hired security firm was overlooked in favour of Reg Dickason's report, compiled for Australia, New Zealand and England. Both, it is said, held contrasting views, but it was Dickason's negative assessment in the end that held sway.

The only rational way of avoiding this discrepancy, to eliminate as much doubt, is for the ICC to appoint one security firm approved by all its members, which would make all future security assessments. To ensure that the method of assessing risk is standard, or less ad-hoc than it is now, won't stop tour cancellations. But it might erode suspicions of double standards, heal some of cricket's rifts, and leave affected members with little scope for complaint. In this strange, shapeless war, that will be a little battle won.

Osman Samiuddin is Pakistan editor of Cricinfo [b]