Australia set to decide on Pakistan tour this week

SYDNEY—Cricket Australia said Monday a decision on whether the national team will tour Pakistan later this month is expected to be made by the end of the week.
Cricket Australia chairman Creagh O’Connor and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) counterpart Nasim Ashraf are scheduled to have a talk by telephone this week to discuss the situation with the tour considered in major doubt. “The next step will be the phone conversation — we are waiting for that to take place,” the Australian body’s spokesman Peter Young said Monday.
Australian players have expressed reservations over the security situation in Pakistan following a spate of suicide bombings. “Clearly the clock is ticking and there is a sense of expectation where we will reach a point certainly no later than this week on working out exactly what is happening,” Young said.
The proposed tour has been compressed into a month, starting on March 29, and PCB officials have said they are against moving Australia’s tour outside of Pakistan because of its long-term impact on cricket in the country. The Australian team has not played in Pakistan for a decade. In 2002 a series that was scheduled for Pakistan was shifted to Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates.
The PCB has promised to provide extra security for the Australian players. Cricket officials met with Australia’s foreign ministry in Canberra last week to get the latest updates on the situation inside Pakistan before making their tour decision.
Earlier, Australia all-rounder Andrew Symonds has ruled himself out of his country's proposed tour to Pakistan, even if Cricket Australia decide to press on with the trip to the troubled nation next month. Symonds, who had previously voiced doubts about the tour, confirmed today he would turn down the chance to add to his 19 Tests if selected.
"It's an unstable environment," Symonds told Channel Ten. "I personally don't see the point of it (going). "I just dread to think what would happen if someone got hurt, let alone killed.
"It's just a situation you would never want to find yourself in, the country in or cricket in." Asked if he was selected and the tour went ahead would he travel, Symonds declared: "I don't think I would go, no." Skipper Ricky Ponting and paceman Stuart Clark have also voiced reservations about the tour to Pakistan since former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December.
Cricket Australia are continuing to assess the situation in the wake of this week's elections in Pakistan, which saw the party of president Pervez Musharraf suffer sweeping losses. CA spokesman Peter Young said the advice to players had been to "keep calm" as the Australian government and cricket heavyweights investigated the situation. The competing nations' cricket boards are in discussion about the proposed tour, which is scheduled to include three Tests and five one-day matches.
It is understood the Pakistan Cricket Board are set to offer their Australian counterpart a condensed series. Young said a meeting in Canberra next week, with high-ranking Australian government security officials, would likely provide a clearer picture going forward

.—Agencies