When England’s cricket team plays a one-day int'l match in Bangladesh on Oct. 7, "it will do so without its captain, Eoin Morgan," according to Tim Wigmore of the N.Y. TIMES. Morgan "recently opted out of the tour, citing security concerns." Alex Hales, another leading English player, "made the same decision." The withdrawals reflected "serious and increasingly common safety concerns in top-flight international cricket." Pakistan, the world’s top-ranked Test team, "has not played a match on home soil in more than seven years, and Afghanistan, a rising power in one-day internationals, has never hosted an official international match." In Bangladesh concerns about terrorism "predate the coming England trip." The Int'l Cricket Council said that it was "sad" that, increasingly, security concerns were making top players and teams unwilling to travel, and preventing a handful of countries from being able to host them. The ICC said that it "would like to see international cricket being played safely in as many countries as possible." England’s decision to go ahead with its tour -- which will include three one-day internationals and two Test matches -- "was made after consultation" with England Cricket Board Security Chief Reg Dickason. Pakistan national team Manager Intikhab Alam said, "Cricket-loving people of Pakistan, they are deprived, they can't watch their own heroes playing." Playing away from home has "also come at a huge financial cost." Because of the "reduced value of sponsorships and, less significantly, the costs of relocating players and the reduced revenue from ticket sales, the Pakistan Cricket Board is estimated to have missed out" on approximately $100M since '09. A significant portion of that figure "can be attributed to the cancellation of matches against India, which has not played Pakistan in any Test match since a terrorist attack in Mumbai" in Nov. '08 conducted by a militant organization based in Pakistan (N.Y. TIMES, 9/26).
