Lambasting the International Cricket Council's decision to let Pakistan keep the hosting rights of this year's Champions Trophy, the New Zealand Players' Association urged its cricketers to boycott the biennial event.
Association head Heath Mills said the ICC's decision was "poor" and is in complete contradiction of the governing body's previous stand that players' safety is top priority.
"We believe this is a poor ICC decision... we can't see how they have put player safety as their No 1 priority and this is very disappointing," Mills told Radio Sport.
"Our recommendation to our players is not to travel to Pakistan at this point in time. There isn't one player I have spoken to who is comfortable about travelling to Pakistan at the moment," he added.
Mills urged New Zealand Cricket to take a serious view of the security threat in Pakistan, saying it would be "unfair for players to be asked to make individual decisions over whether to withdraw".
"We have a number of young and fringe players in the team and they won't feel comfortable about opting out of the tour. It's all right for the top five, six, seven players who are comfortable about their place in the side," he said.
"A lot of the guys have strong views about not wanting to travel to Pakistan. We believe this needs to be a collective decision made by NZ Cricket with our recommendation taken into account," he added.
Mills hoped that the ICC would take a lenient view in case NZC decides to pull out of the event and not impose a fine.
"We have to work out with NZC what the situation is for them, what they are faced with in terms of fines or penalties -- I'm not sure where that stands at the moment.
"I understand there has been some reports that players or teams won't be fined if they don't go to Pakistan so we need to get some clarity about that," he said.
Mills reiterated that despite security reports indicating that Pakistan was not as volatile as it is being perceived to be, the strife-torn country's record has not been particularly impressive in dealing with threats.
"There are a significant number of incidents occurring in Pakistan at the moment and we think there is very real potential one of those incidents will impact on the team while they are in Pakistan," he said.
