Australia is on the decline and Pakistan would have had a good opportunity to beat them had the world champion not postponed its planned tour, Pakistan coach Geoff Lawson said on Wednesday. Australia was due to visit Pakistan at the end of this month for a 30-day tour but the trip has been put on hold after a spate of suicide bombings following the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto late last year. “Australia at the moment is more vulnerable than ever before. We had a good opportunity to beat it in the Tests and one-dayers,” Lawson said Wednesday. Australia was always a hard side to beat but it is more on the decline than on the rise at the moment, he added. “I thought we had a good chance to beat them. That is why it is all the more disappointing they are not coming now.” Cricket Australia has said it was ready to reschedule the tour when conditions improved in Pakistan but do not see a window for a series until 2009 or 2010. Lawson described Australia's decision to postpone the tour as “unjustified”. Pakistan has finalized a five match one-day series with Bangladesh in April but Lawson said it would not fill the void left by Australia's postponement. “Bangladesh is an improving side. But obviously the Australians are the side to beat,” he said. Australia is due to take part in the ICC Champions Trophy in Pakistan in September. Meanwhile, Australia's foreign minister denied the tour was scrapped so players could participate in the lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL). Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Cricket Australia (CA) made its decision to postpone the tour independently on the basis of security concerns. “I have seen suggestions that somehow the decision by Cricket Australia and the Pakistan Cricket Board is related to proposed Twenty20 games in India. I absolutely reject that suggestion,” Smith said. “What was most concerning for Cricket Australia was the safety, security and welfare of their players on any proposed tour.” His comments came amid reports Australia is considering a one-day series to replace its postponed Pakistan tour, even though it would clash with the IPL and put senior players offside. The IPL begins on April 18 and the scrapping of the Pakistan tour potentially frees up Test stars such as Ricky Ponting and Andrew Symonds to cash in on lucrative contracts for three weeks before a West Indies tour. But Sutherland made it clear Tuesday that players could not automatically expect clearance for the IPL. “There's a small window of opportunity there for players to perhaps play in IPL,” he told reporters. “But at the same time, we've got this calendar issue where players won't have had much preparation leading into the West Indies tour.” The Australian said that CA, which receives no revenue from the IPL, regarded the Indian Twenty20 league as a domestic competition and would have little sympathy for players keen to line their pockets. Sydney's Daily Telegraph reported that players had been prepared to boycott the Pakistan series over security issues if CA insisted that it proceed.Victory for “terrorists” Pakistani newspapers on Wednesday accused Australia's cricket team of handing a victory to “terrorists” after it refused to tour the country. “World champions or a bunch of cowards” said the headline on the sports page in The News, an English language daily, a day after Australia scrapped the tour. “It might sound like a cliche but by chickening out of what was a challenging assignment, the Aussies have handed the terrorists operating in this unfortunate country a major victory,” the newspaper said. The article also blamed the multi-million dollar Indian Premier League (IPL) for playing a part in putting off the tour. Another English-language newspaper, The Nation, described the tour postponement as “a win for terrorism.” “People believe that scrapping the tour won't do any good to the game and would rather be a win-win situation for the terrorists,” said the newspaper. Cricket legend Imran Khan said Wednesday that Pakistan was paying the price for backing the US-led “war on terror”. Khan, who captained Pakistan to World Cup glory in 1992 and then retired to become an opposition politician, blamed President Pervez Musharraf for the Australian decision to pull out of the tour. “Musharraf blindly follows the United States in the war against terror and we are paying the price. Because of that we are now at a stage when no one is ready to play cricket here,” Khan said. “People feel the Australians are unjustified in pulling out, but Australia's decision is understandable as everything that happens in Pakistan is magnified to larger proportions abroad,” said Khan. “Australians don't live here and they don't know that bombings are not aimed at sportsmen but terrorists' targets are specific. No one has ever targeted sportsmen in Pakistan.” __
