NO INTERNATIONAL team will go there. The Foreign Office believe there is a "heightened threat to Westerners in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar and advise against all non-essential travel to these cities at this time". Qasim Sheikh, one of Scotland's best young cricketers, leaves on Wednesday to winter in Pakistan.

Twelve months ago the Clydesdale batsman, 23, set off for New Zealand's remote Northland to develop his game with Kamo CC. Life in a nuclear bunker would have been more perilous, and this year he could have gone back. Evidently, Sheikh has a hunch he won't get anywhere in this game by treading the safe path.

Back at the beginning of the year, nervous noises were emanating from Australia about their legendary team touring Pakistan in April. Benazir Bhutto had just been executed and Andrew Symonds said he didn't fancy going anywhere there were "bombs going off". Not only was the Australian tour cancelled, so, in time, was the Champions Trophy in September, just when the country yearned for a chance to prove that life could go on in the face of a major terrorist threat. Two weeks ago Islamabad's Marriott Hotel was shredded by a truck bomb, killing 50 and injuring 250, and now the Pakistan Cricket Board are moving home matches to the United Arab Emirates.

Into this climate of fear, inertia and exile steps a young Glaswegian driven by faith and ambition and with a heck of a big heart. "It is a tricky situation because there is a lot going on over there, and yes, it did cross my mind. But the way I see it is that I could walk out into the street today and get hit by a bus," Sheikh explains. "I'm not sure about the attitude that this is something you can prevent, because it's true that there are dangers everywhere. Somebody could strap a bomb onto themselves and step on a bus in Glasgow."

Most of Sheikh's extended family live in Lahore but he has one branch in Karachi and will be met off the plane by cousins, then transferred into the supervision of Customs CC, who will put him up for three months in their cricket compound. The tie-up was engineered by a first-class player named Stephen John, a Pakistani Christian whom Sheikh met in New Zealand, and for the steely-minded Scot, the potential benefits outweigh push factors that most people would consider prohibitive.

"I'm staying in a secure place, a closed complex where there will be security guards, and all my family is over there anyway. A lot of people would think differently but I am a Muslim and believe what is meant to be is meant to be. It's in God's hands what is going to happen. Fingers crossed I come back alive," he said.

"The Australian cricket team might be considered an interesting target because of the impact it would have, but I don't obviously see myself as a target. It [the potential danger] is just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that could be anywhere right now. Since the bombings started we all kind of live in a bit of fear, because they have gone up in the UK.

"It has been a hard decision and Zeeshan Bashir, another Clydesdale player who is a bit younger than me, was also meant to be going but his family are undecided over whether he should. My Mum is quite apprehensive, but at the same time she shares the view that I have. They have given me all the lectures, of course. You can't walk around the way you would in Australia, and you have to make sure you are with someone at all times. But I'm just going over to play cricket. In Australia and New Zealand, there are other distractions."

Lest anyone should think that the furtherment of a sporting career cannot be worthy of fundamental risks, try telling that to Qasim Sheikh, the son of a property manager who left school at 17 and has never wanted to do anything but bat.

"Cricket Scotland want me to focus on one-day cricket because the World Cup Qualifier is coming up in April. But I will be training five days a week with the Customs professionals and there is a chance that I could also play first-class cricket. Although I'm wary of saying that is going to happen, I'm quietly confident that it will.

"Even in the club cricket where I will start off in a couple of weeks, the standard is very high, and I definitely hope to improve my game against spin. I played most of last summer for Scotland but lost my place when the county guys [Warwickshire's Navdeep Poonia and Durham's Kyle Coetzer] came back. I don't want that to happen any more – I want to be batting in the top four at the World Cup Qualifier, and I think this trip could give me a huge chance of doing that."

Sheikh, who speaks fluent Urdu and modest Punjabi, still harbours a hope that his clubmate Bashir, a leg spinner, will join him in Karachi. "We could train a lot together - Zeeshan is a bit of a bowling machine and I love to bat, so he would come in handy," says Sheikh. "It would be nice to have a person from home there, too, in case things get tough."

You hasten to say that you hope they won't, but somewhere lurks an acknowledgment that danger underpins the challenge.