Wait on tour decision

Press, 14 September 1988, Page 72

Wait on tour decision

NZPA-Reuter Seoul The Indian Sports Minister, Margaret Alva, said yesterday that English cricket authorities “should have kept our feelings in mind” when they picked the party to tour India later this year. Ms Alva, who confirmed that the England captain, Graham Gooch, and seven team-mates would be barred from entering India because of their links with South Africa, said: “I do not know whether the tour is on or off. “That is up to the English Test and County Cricket Board and we cannot advise them on

who they should pick. “Everyone knows India’s stand on apartheid and the T.C.C.B. should have kept our feelings in mind when they picked the side,” said Ms Alva, who is in Seoul to help New Delhi’s bid for the 1994 Commonwealth Games. India is a leading campaigner in the NonAligned Movement against Pretoria’s apartheid policies and joined a Third World boycott of the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh over this issue. In a telex to the T.C.C.8., the Indian cricket board indicated the tour would be in

jeopardy unless England agreed to substitute the eight with players who had no links with South Africa. The telex said that a final decision on the tour would be taken by the board at its meeting on September 24 and 25. Ms Alva said she did not expect the stand on Gooch and his team-mates — the vice-captain, John Emburey, Graham Dilley, Kim Barnett, Allan Lamb, Robin Smith, Tim Robinson and Rob Bailey — to affect her country’s relations with Britain or New Delhi’s chances of hosting the Commonwealth Games.