Zimbabwe tour to go on despite blast outside Gadaffi

Zimbabwe team management have decided to continue with the tour even after Pakistan's information minister Pervaiz Rashid informed about a foiled attack on the Gadaffi Stadium in Lahore on Friday. The blast that took the lives of a police official and a citizen occured during the second ODI between Pakistan and Zimbabwe was originally attributed to a 'power transformer failure'. Zimbabwe will play one more ODI on Sunday in Lahore to complete the tour.

While the PCB had said that the visiting Zimbabwean side will play the third and the final ODI schedudled for Sunday before heading home, Zimbabwe team officials and players met with their Pakistani counterparts on Saturday to discuss the security situation and take a decision on the fate of the final game of the tour.

"The incident happened away from the main premises and nothing is affected," a PCB spokesman told ESPNcricinfo. "The tour will go ahead as planned and the Zimbabwe team will continue with their usual activities today and though they are not training today, they will play the third match on Sunday and subsequently will fly back in the wee hours of Monday."

However, the Zimbabwe team have sought a meeting with the PCB host officials to get more clarity on the state of affairs. "We heard a blast during the match yesterday. We do not know what it was," a Zimbabwe team spokesman said. "We have held a team meeting to inform everyone that our hosts are coming this afternoon to talk to us about the incident," he said before confirming to ESPNCricinfo that the tour will go on.

Friday's incident, which triggered a news blackout in Pakistani media, came despite heavy security for the country's first cricket series on home soil since an attack on the Sri Lankan team bus in March 2009. It is said that Police officials insistence on maintaining the blast to have occured due to an auto-rickshaw cylinder was to avoid creating a panic situation amongst the general public.