I am all in favor of tour taking place. But you mentioned the strong hold of BCCI on other cricket boards. If BCCI decides to play with Pakistan on a neutral venue, what message is being sent to other cricket boards? That they can't come to India just like Pakistan because of terrorism-related security concerns? BCCI is pushing hard for England to continue the tour on their turf and to think that somehow they are going to play Pakistan at a neutral venue does not even come into the picture. Speaking from cricketing perspective, BCCI is already losing millions by postponing Champions League, so they have another reason to postpone the Pakistan tour and instead hold the multi-million dollar extravaganza in it's place.
Ejaz Butt issued a direct statement to BCCI and PCB should push for the tour to take place or else the internal fear of losing the CT spot for next year as well as losing the hold on World Cup matches will further increase.
You are right, this move is more political than anything else.
I totally agree with you Dhobi Bhai that India should come to Pakistan and play and so should other teams. But unfortunate truth is far from that. Look at the English team..such a big incident happened in Mumbai and they have agreed to go ahead with the test matches...had an incident half the magnitude of what happened in Mumbai happened in Lahore/Karachi if England was visiting Pakistan...that would have been good enough for the English team to not visit Pakistan for the next 10 years at least.
Its all about money and entertainment these days...and thats why every team has a soft spot for India. I was reading another article by a British writer and he said cricket should go on to take the people of Mumbai away from the terror and give them something to cheer about. Why is this not the stance of these same writers when it comes to Pakistan?
After the refusal of almost every team to come to Pakistan...I say we should at least play cricket on a neutral venue. The team and fans need some cricket at least. Pakistan hasnt played a test match in over a year...and its a pity that Lawson got fired without even coaching Pakistan in a single test match...which was pathetic.
The Asia cup was held right before the Champions trophy and it went on without any incident at all...yet teams still pulled out due to 'security' fears. Sadly, untill the situation vastly improves in Pakistan...I don't see any team coming to Pakistan except for Zimbabve/Bangladesh...with all due respect to those 2 teams.