As far as I can recall, there are four major cricket teams in South Asia that go for International Cricket, namely India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. Every country has big stadiums with ample seating arrangements, easy access, and modern technologies. However, they do not have the power to retain the International Cricket on own grounds. The governments of all these countries failed to control the extremists who are now targeting cricket to gain attention.

There were ample terrorist attacks last year in India and Pakistan. Sri Lanka is busy fighting with the LTTE. Bangladesh serves as a terror hub next to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Even though there were ongoing terror attacks, the English team which returned home came back to play in India, showed its commitment towards the game as well as faith in the Indian government.

Everything comes to an end when suddenly when we find that terrorists launch a pre-planned attack on the Sri Lankan team touring Pakistan. The situation was became so tense that the players were air lifted from the stadium to avoid roads to reach airport and then to back home at Sri Lanka. This sent waves of shock across the world. It was not terrorism that was highlighted. It was the fact that the terror groups know more than the governments in these countries.

The ICC has ruled out any International cricket in the near future in the terrorist controlled states, so all the four cricket countries are at loss. In a telephonic conversation, that was leaked out by some local newspapers, and later confirmed by some members of the ICC, the ICC will hold a video conference to consider Dubai as an alternative to the South Asian International Cricket. The Headquarters of ICC too is located at Dubai. The discussions are on since couple of days and will be finalized in a few days.

The countries to benefit are Dubai and Abu Dhabi, both of which have good stadiums though they were never involved in International cricket before. While emphasizing the good security at these places, the ICC also sees the easy access. Each International Cricket team can access the place easily as it is almost the center of planet with direct flights to each Cricketing country. Plus it has all the facilities a cricket team would need, including safety, large well equipped stadiums with cozy resorts for the players to relax.

Arun Kumar M.