MUMBAI: Sri Lanka Cricket chief executive Ashley de Silva has said the SLC board plans to send its junior side to Pakistan soon, and “the senior side would follow as soon as possible.” The affirmation comes on the back of a successful Twenty20 match in Lahore played by Lanka for the first time on Sunday, after a gap of eight years.
The Lankan team, accompanied by Sri Lanka’s Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara and board President Thilanga Sumathipala, were impressed with the extraordinary level of security for the match at the Gaddafi stadium on Sunday, says an AFP report. “Our FTP (Future Tours Program) does not include Pakistan, but we will have one as soon as possible,” he said. “We are sending our A team and an Under-19 team to play against Pakistan shortly.”
Sunday’s T20 was Sri Lanka’s first in Pakistan since their team bus was attacked near the same venue in March 2009.
“They delivered the security they promised and we were very satisfied with all the arrangements,” de Silva told reporters in Colombo a day after the team returned home.
An attack on a visiting Lankan team in Pakstan eight years ago had left eight people dead and seven Sri Lanka players and their staff injured, has forced Pakistan to play all their home matches at neutral venues, mainly in the UAE.
Sri Lanka T20 skipper Thisara Perera told AFP that several team members had raised concerns about safety, but he was able to assure them based on his experience in playing in a three-match World XI series in Lahore last month.
“In my nine years of cricket I have never seen that level of security,” Perera said of Sunday’s match which Sri Lanka lost by 36 runs. “I think we can play again in Pakistan.”
The final of the three-match T20 series was held in Lahore to underline Colombo’s confidence in the security arrangements.
The first two matches, which Pakistan won by seven and two wickets respectively, were played in Abu Dhabi before Sri Lanka flew to Lahore in a 24-hour fly-in, fly-out arrangement.
