South African Cricketers’ Association Media Release 16 August 2006 The South African Cricketers’ Association (SACA) strongly supports the decision of Cricket South Africa to withdraw the national cricket team from Sri Lanka for safety and security reasons. ” This has been a very tense last three days” said Tony Irish, the Chief Executive Officer of SACA. ” Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis and I have been in constant contact with the team in Colombo while the process necessary for making the decision has taken place. It has been a very difficult time for the players, especially having to deal with the uncertainty of the situation.” ” At the end of the day” said Irish, ” you have to rely on what the security experts say and base the decisions on that. The team’s security consultants, Nicholls, Steyn and Associates, have been very thorough and the independent ICC security consultants concurred with their security assessment. One cannot underestimate the difficulty of this decision, but it does show that Cricket South Africa places the emphasis on where it should be, namely the safety of the players and the national team” . ENDS
