ECB security chief to check India Test venues

London: England and Cricket Board's (ECB) security expert Reg Dickason left for Chennai on Tuesday to assess the venues for the Test series against India.

The Indian cricket board have changed both the venues as per ECB's request. Chennai (December 11) and Mohali (December 19) are scheduled to host the Test matches. But a final decision will be taken after Dickason's assessment of the security situation.

Dickason will work on how security can be best implemented in Chennai and will face the tough task of preparing a thorough briefing for the team before today.

Friday now appears to be the earliest possible date of departure to India.

If given a green signal by Dickason, ECB will have to convince its players to tour India, though it is unlikely they will return to India with the squad of the same 15 players.

Possible dropouts

With ECB leaving the decision on players and not enforcing penalties for skipping the tour, some top players like Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison have expressed their reluctance to tour India.

National selector Geoff Miller, too, made it clear on Saturday that no one should agree to resume the tour if he had "a sense of fear".

"If there's a sense of fear then you can't be fully focussed on the job you are trying to do. These are difficult circumstances, difficult times, and you've got to have a very strong character to be able to do that," Miller was quoted as saying The Guardian.

"The players met in India and discussed things, although there was very little they could discuss while waiting to see what Reg and the security people said. Now they will make their own personal decisions and once they have all done that we will reassess it, but we have to reassess it quickly because the turnaround is rapid."