{"id":9585,"date":"2008-03-13T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-13T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2008\/03\/13\/musharraf-to-blame-for-tour-debacle-imran-khan\/"},"modified":"2008-03-13T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-13T14:00:00","slug":"musharraf-to-blame-for-tour-debacle-imran-khan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2008\/03\/13\/musharraf-to-blame-for-tour-debacle-imran-khan\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Musharraf to blame for tour debacle\u2019 &#8211; Imran Khan"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3>Former captain blasts country\u2019s politics<\/h3>\n<div><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"291\" hspace=\"10\" width=\"180\" align=\"right\" vspace=\"3\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/Image\/ArticleImages\/ImranKhan180x232(1).jpg\"\/>IMRAN Khan has blamed Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf for Australia pulling out of their tour to the country saying his political choices have had a detrimental affect on the nation\u2019s favourite sport.<\/strong> <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>After months of uncertainty Australia finally chose not to tour Pakistan for a series scheduled later this month. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>They cited security reasons following a number of bomb blasts in the country since the assassination of Benazir Bhutto last December. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>Former captain and now political heavyweight Imran Khan was under no illusion who should take the blame for Australia\u2019s decision. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>&#8220;Musharraf blindly follows the United States in the war against terror and we are paying the price,&#8221; Imran told AFP. &#8220;Because of that we are now at a stage when no one is ready to play cricket here.<\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>&#8220;People feel the Australians are unjustified in pulling out, but Australia&#8217;s decision is understandable as everything that happens in Pakistan is magnified to larger proportions abroad,&#8221; Imran added. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>&#8220;Australians don&#8217;t live here and they don&#8217;t know that bombings are not aimed at sportsmen but terrorists&#8217; targets are specific. No one has ever targeted sportsmen in Pakistan.&#8221; <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>Bangladesh look to be the next likely touring side after they were invited by the Pakistan Cricket Board to fill the gap left vacant by the Australians. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former captain blasts country\u2019s politics IMRAN Khan has blamed Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf for Australia pulling out of their tour to the country saying his political choices have had a detrimental affect on the nation\u2019s favourite sport. &#13; After months of uncertainty Australia finally chose not to tour Pakistan for a series scheduled later this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}