Pakistan minister Fawad Hussain blames India for Sri Lanka cricketers' tour boycott
After mocking India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission failure, Pakistan’s science and technology minister Fawad Hussain Chaudhry blamed India for Sri Lankan players’ tour boycott. Pakistan and Sri Lanka are supposed to play a bilateral series in Karachi starting from September 27.
Senior Sri Lankan players opted out of the series siting security concern and Fawad has found a way to put the blame on India. Fawad said India is pressuring and threatening Sri Lankan players to opt-out or lose IPL (Indian Premier League) contracts.
“Informed sports commentators told me that India threatened SL players that they will be ousted from IPL if they don't refuse Pak visit, this is really cheap tactic, jingoism from sports to space is something we must condemn, really cheap on the part of Indian sports authorities,” Chaudhry tweeted.
Informed sports commentators told me that India threatened SL players that they ll be ousted from IPL if they don’t refuse Pak visit, this is really cheap tactic, jingoism from sports to space is something we must condemn, really cheap on the part of Indian sports authorities
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) September 10, 2019
It is being said that Sri Lankan cricket board had given an option to its players if they wanted to opt-out of the series. And many senior players including star cricketer Lasith Malinga decided not to go to Pakistan.
Sri Lanka is slated to play three ODIs in Karachi on September 27, 29 and October 3, and as many T20Is in Lahore on October 5, 7 and 9 during the tour, before returning in December for the Test series that will be a part of the World Test Championship.
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First published: 10 September 2019, 16:44 IST