SYDNEY: Australian players on Tuesday
refused to commit to this year’s lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) until a
list of safety demands addressing “serious” security concerns had been
met.

Paul Marsh, head of the Australian Cricketers’ Association, said
players issued the demands, which follow a reported threat from an
Al-Qaeda-linked militant, after a security consultant identified a number of
shortcomings.

“From the outset it is important to reinforce that
players want to play in this year’s IPL,” Marsh told reporters after a meeting
with about 25 Australian players.

“However the independent report has
identified some serious concerns with aspects of the current security
process.

“Specifically these concerns relate to the reported direct
threat against the event and the status and implementation of the IPL’s security
plan.”

Marsh said players had agreed to take British security expert
Reg Dickason’s confidential findings back to their colleagues to prepare a list
of demands, which would be relayed to the IPL by FICA, the international
cricketers’ union.

Until the IPL responded to their concerns Marsh
said players would not commit to the tournament.

“The players are
most certainly concerned, the IPL’s had a direct threat … and the IPL security
plans are not currently in a state that we’re happy with, those are the two
issues,” Marsh said

Fresh security worries surfaced last week when
the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online news website said it had received a
warning from an Al-Qaeda-linked militant about attacking sports events in
India.

The warning, from Ilyas Kashmiri, cast jitters over the glitzy
Twenty20 tournament, along with the field hockey World Cup later this month in
New Delhi, and October’s Commonwealth Games

A right-wing Hindu group
earlier withdrew a threat to prevent “kangaroo cricketers” from playing in
Maharashtra state, which includes IPL hosts Mumbai and Nagpur, after a series of
attacks on Indian students living in Australia.

Marsh previously
warned that securing the IPL, which is spread over many venues across multiple
cities, was a more difficult task than more concentrated formats such as the
Olympic or Commonwealth Games.

Australian leg spin great Shane Warne
last week said the threats had him “thinking twice” about heading to India to
captain-coach the Rajasthan Royals, describing them as of “deep concern to
athletes across a number of sports.”

Warne said the IPL had been
moved last year at short notice to South Africa and, if the threats were proven,
organisers should consider moving it again.

Organisers took the
dramatic step of shifting the event abroad last March, after Indian authorities
could not guarantee security because of a clash with national elections. Just
weeks earlier gunmen in Lahore, Pakistan had ambushed the Sri Lankan team’s
convoy, killing eight Pakistanis.

Extremist attacks in Mumbai in
November 2008 which left 165 dead had already prompted grave security fears for
the IPL tournament.