SAN JUAN, Trinidad (Reuters)
by Colin Croft With West Indies crawling their way back up the international cricket rankings after beating Zimbabwe, the next few tours are of ultimate importance for Carl Hooper's side. At the last reckoning, the West Indies were rated at number five in the world just behind Sri Lanka, the venue for the next West Indian tour.

There has been much rhetoric and soul searching about the next two West Indian trips, to Sri Lanka starting in November and then to Pakistan in late January.

I love both the Pakistanis and the Sri Lankan teams and their cricketing styles, both exuding great excitement and enjoyment of the game. Their passion was never clearer to me than during the furore over offspinner Muttiah Muralitharan after he was called for throwing in Australia in 1995. Tony Greig, the former England captain, and I were among the few commentators who argued that it had been a very unfair call. Time has proved us right.

Unfortunately, however, the region is now fully caught up in the uncertainty following the attacks on the United States. Cricket will have to wake up to the fact that it will be affected, as it was a few years ago when New Zealand were touring Sri Lanka. A suicide bombing occurred within a stone's throw of the team's hotel in Colombo and it took some courage for that tour to continue.

It will certainly have been noted that New Zealand immediately cancelled their proposed tour of Pakistan after the September 11 attacks. With the situation still simmering internationally, I think that the West Indies Cricket Board should come out now, not wait on the next ICC general meeting next week, and suggest that both of their proposed tours should be cancelled, at least in their present form.

No cricket authorities have the right to send a team into a situation that could become volatile at any moment. I remember hearing, with reference to South Africa before 1991, that "normal cricket could not be played in abnormal circumstances".

I would propose instead that the West Indies instead invite Sri Lanka and Pakistan to tour the Caribbean, with West Indies touring those countries at a later date. That would mean that the West Indies international season would run from November 2001 to around June 2002. What a smorgasbord of cricket that would be! It might even be a good rehearsal for the 2007 cricket World Cup and show how efficient - or not - West Indian organisation can be.

Some might suggest that the rains could spoil things a bit, but they spoil things almost every year, in March to May anyway. And the months of October to January over the past few years in the Caribbean have been the driest in recent history.

Instead of the West Indies playing seven Test matches and 12 one-day games between February and early June against India and New Zealand, the players could look forward to being involved in many more, perhaps an additional six Test matches and maybe nine more one-dayers.

Sri Lanka and Pakistan especially would feel rather left out and let down, and I feel for them, but I still believe Sri Lanka touring the Caribbean from November and Pakistan from late January would be the perfect solution for all.

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd