Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan, who is the mentor of Jammu & Kashmir state teams, along with age-group aspirants left for their respective homes after ongoing U-16 and U-19 trials in Srinagar have been postponed due to prevailing security situation in the valley.
The state administration has issued an advisory for alltourists and Amarnath Yatris to leave the valley due to a potential terrorthreat.
Pathan was in Srinagar to oversee the trials for the U-16(Vijay Merchant Trophy) and U-19 (Cooch Behar Trophy) and prune the list ofprobables.
“We have for the time being postponed the second phaseof junior team trials. We had the first phase from June to July. This was thesecond phase. However since there has been a government advisory, I had ameeting with Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA) CEO Mr Bukhari andadministrator Justice Prasad. Accordingly, it was decided that boys need to besent back home,” Pathan told PTI on Sunday.
Pathan left Srinagar only after all the boys, from otherregions like Jammu reached home.
“I myself personally ensured, at least for a few boys,that they can reach their homes safely. I can understand that their parentswere tensed and rightly so. I called up some of them to confirm that they have indeedreached their homes. Now that everyone has left, I left today,” saidPathan.
He agreed that due to the current situation, the trainingschedule got hampered but expected that things will be back on track in notime.
“We have got an elaborate blue print ready. We wantedto have a heads up in our preparations and that’s why we started the camp asearly as June so that when this camp starts, we can shortlist the boys easily.Also our boys will be playing an All-India pre-season tournament and I will monitortheir performance,” the 34-year-old said.
While he remains hopeful that camp will resume in a few daystime after the current security issue is taken care of, he also didn’t rule outthe option of training in any other state.”If a situation demands, there could be acontingency plan where JKCA can use the training facilities of any other stateassociation,” said Pathan.