Cricketers head into high risk security area

Press, 17 October 1987, Page 80

Cricketers head into high risk security area

NZPA-AAP Bombay

New Zealand and Australian cricketers yesterday headed into a high risk security area for their World Cup crunch match at Indore on Sunday.

Paramilitary commandos have been deployed in the northern Indian city to guard against the possibilty of attack by Sikh separatists.

It is one of six World Cup centres identified as high risk zones, which are to be guarded by 300 hand-picked Border Security Force (8.5. F. commandos.

The World Cup organ-

isers decided to deploy the B.S.F. guards — for the first time in India’s cricketing history — after an increasing number of attacks by Sikh militants, demanding a homeland in Punjab State. The commandos, armed with sub-machine guns, will set up pill boxes and take up positions at the stadium in Indore.

Armed policemen and B.S.F. troops will also frisk spectators and check all vehicles for weapons and explosives* The other high risk World Cup cities are Jaipur, Kanpur and the capital New Delhi, where Australia will play its re-

turn preliminary round match against India on Thursday.

At least two battalions of B.S.F. commandos were recalled from India’s troubled northern borders in Punjab last month for training in urban guerrilla warfare and stadium security duties.

Police baton charges are a familiar hazard outside Indian cricket grounds, as fans try to force their way on to the already crowded terraces.

The New Zealand skipper, Jeff Crowe, is making his own security arrangements to guard

against an Australian run onslaught on Sunday.

Crowe is certain to revise the bowling tactics that cost him the match against India at Bangalore on Wednesday, after Kapil Dev and the wicketkeeper, Kirin More, slammed 82 runs off the last eight overs. “We normally have a set plan in the closing overs, When we bowl to a 4-5 field setting,” Crowe said yesterday.

“We look to bowl on a fuller length on the leg stump. But a very precise ball needs to be, bowled and I wonder if we should vary our options and bowl at the stumps.”