Uncertainty over WC hockey, Commonwealth Games
Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 3
Decision of Australia to pull out from Davis Cup tie against India in Chennai, citing security concerns as the reason, has put a question mark over hosting of the World Cup Hockey Tournament for men and the Commonwealth Games in the union capital next year.

“It should act as a wake-up call for India,” says a sports administrator. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, he says that Australia has been using shifting of IPL to South Africa as a tool for supporting its decision to pull out of the Davis Cup.

Disturbances in the South Asian subcontinent because of Army actions both in Sri Lanka – against LTTE, and Pakistan, against Taliban are making the sports administrators in the western world rethink about their sports engagements here.

The ICC has already dropped Pakistan as a co-host for the 2011 Cricket World Cup. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh will continue to be the co-hosts.

Even Pakistan has not taken well to India’s decision for suspending all exchange of sports teams between the two countries.

Incidentally, Australia has a big say both in the International Hockey Federation as well as the Commonwealth Games Federation. Convincing Australia about New Delhi as safe venue for these two major sporting events will be a gigantic task for Indian sports administrators. If Aussies are convinced, the rest of the participating nations may not be that difficult to convince with India’s clean past record.

Though the shifting of the IPL was more because of non-availability of security forces at the venue of the games, India has been free from any serious law and order problem since the terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

India neither appears in the list of countries which Australian government wants its citizens to completely avoid or the other list of countries for which it wants its citizens to reconsider their travel plans.

Pakistan figures in the second list. Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Iraq, Somalia and Sudan are the countries Australians have been told to avoid completely.

Some recent terrorist or Taliban strikes across the border, including attack on the Police Training Centre near Lahore, have raised serious security concerns in India as well. The growing clout of the Taliban and their diktats are keeping the security agencies on Indian side on high alert.

Foolproof sealing of the border along Punjab and J& K borders besides sensitising sea routes to prevent a repeat of 26/11 and other visible security measures can convince the decision makers of the World Cup Hockey as well as the Commonwealth Games to keep the 2010 venue of their events unchanged.

India will have to bend backwards to convince the rest of the world that holding of major sporting events is as safe as elsewhere and shifting of IPL was more of logistical problems than any serious security concerns

Courtesy: The Tribune