Friday, June 14, 2002 September 11, 2001 was not only a landmark in the history of the United States of America, it may also be remembered as the day Pakistan cricket was destroyed. Only New Zealand have risked bombs and bullets in Pakistan, and they left in such a hurry that they probably wish that they had never bothered.

I have always thought it improbable that cricketers would be attacked by militant groups - it's surely a quick way to ensure that your cause loses public support. Yet it is inconceivable that any government will sanction a trip to a region where foreigners are being targeted, and from which the governments of Britain and America are recalling their employees.

This is a disaster for Pakistan. The cricket board will lose revenue, and its young cricketers will not develop as they should. Even the current crop of international stars are being denied the chance to set the world alight.

There is a stark choice facing Pakistan's cricket board, familiar to Darwinists: adapt or die. As much as I would prefer to see Pakistan entertaining their guests at home, I am convinced that extraordinary times call for pragmatism and creativity, not for bravado.

When New Zealand returned home early there was a hope that the political situation in Pakistan might settle enough for Australia to tour at the end of August and into September. Instead it has got worse - another car-bomb today in Karachi - leaving little time for the two boards to make a sensible decision about security. Rather than allow further scope for uncertainty and acrimony, Pakistan's board should agree to play the Australian series abroad, preferably in Australia.

ICC has sanctioned such a switch in its itinerary. And it is far better for Pakistan's cricketers to learn more about Australian conditions, both for their personal development and as further preparation for the next World Cup. South African wickets are not known to have much in common with the compressed mud of Sharjah or Morocco.

It should be clear in the minds of everyone involved with Pakistan cricket that the long-term objectives must be to remain a powerful force in cricket ... and to stay solvent. The best means of achieving those goals would be for Pakistan's cricketers to play away from home as long as it takes for the war clouds with India to disappear and the fallout from the Afghan conflict to settle.

These are desperate times. It would be a failure of leadership for the Pakistan Cricket Board to balk at desperate measures.

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Kamran Abbasi, born in Lahore, brought up in Rotherham, is deputy editor of the British Medical Journal.

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