Pressure from abroad for cricket to go on

NEW DELHI (AP) - England asked for the test series to go ahead next month in the wake of the terror attacks in Mumbai, says a high-ranking Indian cricket official, who also claimed next week's Champions League Twenty20 tournament was postponed for logistical - not security - reasons.

Lalit Modi, the vice president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and one of the world's most influential cricket administrators, denied in a newspaper interview Saturday that India pressured England into coming back next month to complete its tour.

He said pressure was coming from Australia and South Africa on another front, with those cricket boards wanting the Champions League Twenty20 tournament to go ahead from Wednesday.

The England squad flew home early Saturday morning, with skipper Kevin Pietersen saying no player would be forced to return to India for two tests next month if a security assessment identified any concerns.Modi said in emergency planning meetings, England officials had only sought a change of venue for the second test.

The second match was moved from Mumbai to Chennai, starting as scheduled on Dec. 19, but last two matches of the limited-overs international series were canceled, allowing the England players time at home ahead of the tests and after losing the ODI series 5-0.

"In a conversation with our board secretary they (the ECB) discussed the issue and themselves said they would like to come back," Modi said in an interview with the Times Of India newspaper.

"Their only request was to move the test match out of Mumbai.

Looking into the interest of the ECB, keeping in mind what is logistically possible, we moved the game to Chennai." A wave of coordinated attacks across Mumbai starting Wednesday night has left at least 195 dead, including foreigners who were visiting two of the city's luxury hotels or tourist landmarks.

Modi, one of the chief architects of the lucrative Indian Premier League Twenty20 competition and the Champions League Twenty20, said it was important for international cricket to continue in India.

"We have a problem and it is of a magnitude never seen before.

To deal with it, the government and the Indian Army are working together," he said in the interview. "On the other hand, we cannot allow anybody to deter us. The safety of players is paramount and keeping that in mind, the England team left. In the past we have had a blast in Jaipur during the IPL but cricket continued.

That's because the security forces understood the situation and gave us the go-ahead." The shootings and bomb blasts in Mumbai ruled India's financial hub out as one of the three venues for the Champions League, a competition between leading provincial teams from five countries that was due to start next Wednesday.

"Firstly, we didn't postpone the Champions League because of the security issue. We postponed it because we couldn't schedule matches in Mumbai and within such short notice it was not possible to shift it to another venue," Modi said. "Other countries were OK with the tournament going on and were in fact putting pressure on us to continue.

"Both Cricket Australia and Cricket South Africa said why not have matches in Chennai, but curators said that the pitches might not last until the final game." Modi said other countries had proven that cricket can go on after terror attacks, pointing out that England hosts Australia in the 2005 Ashes series only two weeks after bombings in London.

"Nobody expected something like this to happen. But you can't let these things deter you," Modi said, adding that India needed to avoid being listed alongside Pakistan as a difficult country to tour because of security."It is something we need to think about seriously because becoming sidelined like Pakistan due to security threats is something that is logical," Modi said.