KARACHI: Pakistan is pinning hopes of regaining its status as a 2011 World Cup co-host in a meeting between its cricket chief Ijaz Butt and his International Cricket Council (ICC) counterpart David Morgan in Dubai later this month. Butt and the ICC president are to meet on July 27 or 28 and though the full agenda is not known, it is likely that the duo will try to reach an out of court settlement. The PCB chairman decided against divulging any details of his meeting with Morgan, saying that I can’t say much about it because its legal matter. But he told Arab News that efforts are being made to work out a settlement that is agreeable to Pakistan.
“I cannot speak about it because it is a legal matter. But I can tell you that we are still trying to solve the matter through talks and to find a settlement out of court.”
Pakistan’s chances of getting its quota of 2011 World Cup matches appear slim following the tournament’s Central Organizing Committee (COC) meeting in Mumbai earlier this month where the other three co-hosts - India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh - voted in favor of sharing the 14 games that were originally supposed to take place in Pakistan. Eight of those matches went to India, four to Sri Lanka and two to Bangladesh.
Pakistan decided against attending the meeting though it did receive an invitation as the fourth ‘host’ country. Butt said that the PCB didn’t boycott the meeting. However, he gave no reasons why Pakistan refused to attend it.
A former Test cricketer, Butt also refrained from commenting on whether the PCB is still hopeful of getting Pakistan’s status as a 2011 World Cup co-host revived following talks with the ICC. “I can’t say anything before hand,” he said. “We are keen to resolve the issue but let’s see what happens.”
So far Pakistan’s efforts to win back the World Cup fixtures have received little or no success.
They were deprived of the right to host part of the quadrennial spectacle in April this year just weeks after the Sri Lankan cricket team came under a terrorist attack in Lahore on March 5.
At a meeting in Dubai, ICC announced that the decision was taken after studying the security situation in Pakistan.
Pakistan responded by launching legal proceedings against the ICC but later decided to put them on hold in a bid to resolve the matter through negotiations with other stakeholders. The Board even seemed ready to host its share of World Cup games in Dubai and Abu Dhabi after initially demanding that the matches should be allowed to go ahead in Pakistan.
However, senior PCB officials were in for a setback when a summit in London held on the sidelines of last month’s ICC World Twenty20 championship failed to find a solution.
Meanwhile, the Lahore High Court gave a stay order until July 30 against the relocation of the World Cup Secretariat from Lahore to Mumbai. But during Tuesday’s meeting it was decided by the COC that the tournament secretariat would be based in Mumbai.
Pakistan are unhappy over the development with the PCB’s legal adviser Tafazzul Rizvi saying that the move will be brought to the court’s knowledge.
“I would not like to comment on the merit of the decisions made on Tuesday because it’s a legal matter, but keeping the secretariat in Mumbai is tantamount to contempt of court and will be brought to the knowledge of the court,” said Rizvi.
