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Despite concerns from several members of the team, Australia’s players would trust the advice of security experts on whether to tour Pakistan, according to the former vice-captain Adam Gilchrist. Gilchrist’s comments came as Cricket Australia again said it was now up to the ICC to respond to issues raised during a meeting in Melbourne on Friday.

“I was speaking to a couple of [players] yesterday,” Gilchrist told AAP. “There’s a lot of uncertainty and there always seems to be these big decisions to be made.

“It is an important time for cricket, everyone has identified that - players and administrators. But as was the case throughout my career, you just take the advice of the experts in the security field and that’s what Cricket Australia and the players’ association are continuing to do and the players would trust that opinion, I have no doubt about that.”

After Friday’s security briefing Ricky Ponting said the players still had concerns about visiting Pakistan for the Champions Trophy, particularly regarding whether the safety measures that were planned could be implemented properly. Michael Brown, Cricket Australia’s acting chief executive, said the ICC needed to respond to such queries before Australia would decide whether to tour.

“Our view is quite simply we need now to see where the ICC choose to go with this,” Brown said. “I’m sure they will come back to us in the next few days. The ICC are the ones who are in control of both the detail and the possible alternative venue, so I’m sure we all understand that it’s their position now.”

Brown said Cricket Australia had not asked individual players whether they would go ahead with the tour as such discussions were irrelevant at this stage. “The important issue now is for us to work with the ICC,” he said. “We are not in the business of going to players and asking their answers prior to us making a decision.”

Source:Cricket News

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