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Pakistan have been banned from speaking in English at World Cup news conferences to prevent players from being misquoted, a team spokesman has said.
Pervez Mir, a former Pakistan international and the team's press liaison officer during the World Cup, confirmed that players would only speak in Urdu, an attempt to also promote tourism in Pakistan.
"This decision was taken by the Pakistan Cricket Board because it is our national language and because 2007 is our National Tourist Year so we are promoting Pakistan as well," Mir was quoted as saying by Reuters. "This is the perfect platform to promote and expose our national language, so there's nothing more to it."
Mir said that Danish Kaneria had been misquoted in Trinidad after the Pakistan team were evacuated from their hotel following a gas leak. "A journalist spoke to Danish Kaneria and asked him what he thought about the gas leak and he tried to play the incident down and said 'It happens'.
"But when the report came out the journalist quoted him saying 'It happens at home as well'. So we would rather avoid these kinds of incidents and speak in Urdu at official times, as well as for reasons of promoting Pakistan."
Not now.
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