Threat is real, safety not guaranteed, players told

ON THE day the Australian men's hockey team flew out for India, Australia's sizeable contingent of Indian Premier League cricketers were left to contemplate the toughest decision of their careers after a report warned that their safety at next month's cricket tournament could not be guaranteed.

The highly anticipated report, by security consultant Reg Dickason and commissioned by the Australian, English and South African players' unions, landed yesterday in the inbox of Australian Cricketers Association chief executive Paul Marsh.

It is understood it warns that the threats made last week by al-Qaeda militant Ilyas Kashmiri against the IPL, as well as the hockey World Cup and the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, are credible and that cricketers' safety cannot be assured.

The recommendations by Dickason are expected to form the basis of the players' union advice to Australia's players and coaching and support staff involved in the IPL, which begins on March 12, as the competition is not under Cricket Australia jurisdiction.

But Marsh was last night unable to say whether the union would advise players to withdraw from the Twenty20 tournament. ''We're not in a position to talk about it right now,'' Marsh said. ''I've just received it and I'm working my way through it.''

Dickason, who was due to fly with the England team from the United Arab Emirates to Bangladesh yesterday after being hired to oversee security for that tour, was unavailable for comment.

His report, which could prompt a mass withdrawal of players this week from the IPL, arrived as the Australian men's hockey team boarded a plane in Perth yesterday bound for Delhi.

It came only a day after it was revealed that security plans for the Commonwealth Games in October had been stolen.

Tennis Australia had commissioned two security firms to assess the risk of its players competing in the tie in Chennai and cited the stolen plans as justification for its decision to forfeit a Davis Cup tie with India in May last year.

The Tennis Australia report, drawing on information from ''other security organisations with strong ties to the Chennai region'', does not specify who stole the Commonwealth Games blueprints but a source said: ''It forced the organisers to rejig the whole security plans for the Games.''

Hockey Australia yesterday gave the green light to the Kookaburras' participation in the World Cup, which starts next Sunday, after receiving advice from sources including the Australian High Commission and the Foreign Affairs department, that the al-Qaeda threat on the 10-nation tournament was not credible and that security arrangements were sufficient.

Security service company ATMAAC International, which will accompany the Kookaburras for the two-week competition, also said it would be safe for the team to travel.

Delhi police say a security force of 17,000 will oversee the event, as well as 1000 paramilitary personnel and 200 commandos positioned on rooftops of buildings.

''The information from all sources is consistent,'' said Hockey Australia yesterday. ''The advice states that there is a strong commitment and tangible evidence of the authorities' ability to implement robust security measures to ensure our team's safety at all times.

''All threats have been assessed and there are no known credible World Cup threats at this time.''

While the Hockey World Cup is poised to go ahead without a withdrawal, the IPL could be stripped of many of its players if they heed the recommendations in Dickason's report.

Tim May, the head of world cricketers' union FICA, forecast IPL withdrawals even before the Dickason report went to union chiefs.