New Delhi: International Cricket Council's (ICC) Principal Advisor and board member of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Inderjit Singh Bindra, is confident that season-two of the Twenty20 league will be played as scheduled despite fears post-Lahore attacks.
Five new venues have been added to the revised IPL schedule - Vadodara, Nagpur, Cuttack, Ahmedabad and Indore - in the wake of security concerns after the attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore.
The nine venues that had earlier been announced for the IPL were Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Vizag, Chennai, and Mohali.
The attack on Sri Lankan cricket team last week in Lahore have forced players to have a second thoughts on coming to India for IPL. But Bindra is confident that the second edition of the Twenty20 league will not be affected.
"I am 100 per cent certain the IPL will go ahead," Bindra was quoted as saying by London newspaper, The Daily Telegraph. "Each of the venues except one has already got clearance from the Indian government. I foresee no problem."
"I was reading on the internet the other day about the Taliban and their attitude to cricket," Bindra was further quoted as saying. "They say that Muslims should use swords not bats. They say that cricket in Asia is like opium in China in the 19th century - a tool of the imperial powers. It is a very pernicious philosophy."
Bindra believes that Pakistan should not start on the very slippery slope of playing at neutral venues.
"That is a booby-trap and they will cease to be a Test-playing country," he said. "How do youngsters watch and learn the game if Pakistan do not play at home? Give Pakistan a chance to get their act together - and they must ensure presidential-style security, not just talk about it. But ultimately this is something that cannot be tackled by cricket administrators but by the global powers," he said.
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