Khan, a former Foreign Secretary and United Nations envoy, and a cousin of the Nawab of Pataudi, may have little experience in international cricket management but his appointment indicates the diplomatic significance Islamabad is attaching to the team's visit.

Yesterday's attack at the BCCI office in Mumbai and the string of threats by the Shiv Sena have shaken cricket officials but they echoed Sharif's directive. Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Khalid Mehmood told reporters: ``We have no choice but to trust the Indian authorities on security.''

This faith isn't shared by the families of cricketers in Pakistan who have expressed grave concern overthe safety of the team in India. There is intense pressure within Pakistan to call off the tour given the growing feeling that Government of India is not coming down hard enough on the Shiv Sena. Many observers ascribe this to the political composition and compulsions of the government of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and the fact that the Sena is a crucial ally in Maharashtra.

Cricketers told journalists in Pakistan that their families were very upset over the Mumbai incident. ``I have received a number of calls from family members,'' captain Wasim Akram told reporters in Lahore today. Akram, who did not sound as confident about the security of the team as he did prior to the Mumbai incident, said the cricketers were going to India in the ``greater interest of the game.''

Political observers said the only point that had pushed the tour through was the intervention of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who is understood to have said that the team would go to India irrespective of what hadhappened.

Pakistan and India have not played each other in either country for the last twelve years since Pakistan toured India in 1987 when Imran Khan's team won the series 1-0.