Terror fears stump cricket

THE International Cricket Council yesterday postponed for a year the Champions Trophy tournament in Pakistan, after teams expressed security concerns and threatened to pull out o f the event .

After meeting in Dubai, the ICC board announced their decision on the most important one-day cricket tournament after the World Cup.

South Africa withdrew on Friday — unwilling to travel to Pakistan for the September 12-28 event .

It had become clear to Pakistani cricket authorities that Australia, England, New Zealand and the West Indies would also pull out .

“There was unanimious decision to postpone it until October 2009 ,” ICC president David Morgan said . “India were quite influential in persuading some other nations .”

Pakistan is fighting Taliban and al-Qaida militants and has endured a string of suicide bomb attacks in the last year that have killed more than 1000 people