Sri Lanka minister decline reports claiming India barred Lanka players from Pakistan tour

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Harin Fernando, the Sri Lankan sports minister has strongly declined the allegation which claimed that India had threatened the Lanka players to opt out of their Pakistan tour. Yesterday, Fawad Chaudhry, Pakistan’s science and technology minister, accused India for threatening the players from the island nation that if they travel to Pakistan, they would lose their IPL contracts.

However, the Lanka minister clarified this statement on Wednesday saying that the 10 players who have opted out from the tour, did so, because of the horrifying attack on the Sri Lankan team bus in Pakistan which happened back in 2009.

“No truth to reports that India influenced Sri Lankan players not to play in Pakistan. Some decided not to play purely based on 2009 incident. Respecting their decision we picked players who were willing to travel. We have a full-strength team & we hope to beat Pakistan in Pakistan,” Fernando tweeted

Pakistan was immediately banned from hosting international tournaments, and the upcoming series is going to be a complete tour by any country since the attack.

Sri Lanka great Lasith Malinga, along with the other top players including, Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Suranga Lakmal, Dimuth Karunaratne, Thisara Perera, Akila Dhananjaya, Dhananjaya de Silva, Kusal Perera and Niroshan Dickwella, have all removed themselves from the series following a security briefing by the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) board.

The series which is scheduled to start from September 27 will see Sri Lanka take on the hosts in three ODIs at Karachi, while the three T20Is will start October 3 onwards at Lahore.