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Cricket Australia has 'considerable reservations'

Cricket Australia remains non-committal about the defending champions attending next month's Champions Trophy in Pakistan

Cricinfo staff
19-Aug-2008

Australia is yet to confirm its participation in next month's Champions Trophy © Getty Images
 
Cricket Australia remains non-committal about the defending champions attending next month's Champions Trophy in Pakistan. The ICC was due to discuss the tournament, scheduled for September 12-28, at a meeting in Dubai on Wednesday, with a move to Sri Lanka being considered as one possible outcome.
Cricket Australia spokesman Peter Young said they were keenly awaiting the outcome of the meeting which would ensure greater clarity. "We have considerable reservations, as do our players and the Australian Cricketers' Association," he told Australian Associated Press on Wednesday. "The ICC understands the considerable reservations that Australia, New Zealand, England, South Africa and perhaps some others hold. We're hoping the ICC will give us some advice. We expect some sort of certainty within the next 24 hours about what the next step in this process is.
"We will not put Pakistan in a situation if we get specialist advice that tells us that it's not safe to travel," he said. "The security advice however, does not give us any great encouragement at the moment."
Even as the ICC said the tournament would proceed as planned, Paul Marsh, the chief executive of the ACA, didn't believe it was safe to travel to Pakistan. "The ACA has discussed the situation with its executive and our position is we can't recommend to our players they should tour Pakistan for the Champions Trophy," he had told the Australian. "We feel for the Pakistan Cricket Board and the people of Pakistan but it is the job of the ACA to make recommendations to our members based on whether it is safe to tour. Unfortunately in this case we don't believe it is safe."
The news from Australia came shortly after Haroon Lorgat, the ICC chief executive, addressed a press conference in London and said safety and security in Pakistan was "satisfactory" and the tournament would proceed as planned next month.
Lorgat was speaking after talks with the ECB as part of the ICC task force that has been travelling around the world. On Sunday the group met with the England players and their representatives in Edinburgh and now the ECB has received a detailed briefing, following similar discussions in Australia and New Zealand led by David Richardson, the ICC's general manager of cricket. ICC officials, including the president David Morgan, are due to talk about the results at Wednesday's meeting.
The ECB had also held a board meeting on Tuesday afternoon, where they were expected to come to a decision on their participation in the tournament after consultation with other boards around the world.

Lorgat refuses to rule out ICC sanctions for countries who don't take part or send weakened teams © Getty Images
 
"What we have done is to very clearly outline to each of these stakeholders the plan that we have in place for the Champions Trophy in Pakistan," Lorgat said. "Understandably there are safety concerns and that's what we are engaged in and we are dealing with.
"The ECB has received a briefing from us and have gone into a board meeting. They will consider our briefing among other reports that they may have on whether they will participate or not. But that is a decision for the ECB, as far as the ICC are concerned the safety and security is satisfactory for hosting the tournament in Pakistan."
However, while admitting that the final decision on participation lay in the hands of the ECB, CA, New Zealand Cricket and Cricket South Africa - whom Lorgat will meet later in the week - he refused to rule out ICC sanctions for countries that didn't take part or send weakened teams.
"It's a complicated legal process," he said. "It's something I would not be able to tell you at this point. I would like to think that the member boards would not send weakened sides because no life is lesser than another. Either you send your best side or you decide the advice tells you differently. But having said that I think it's a position the ICC will have to deal with when they see the extent of weakened teams, again it's speculative at this time."
Recent political developments in Pakistan, with Pervez Musharraf resigning as president, continue to present an uncertain landscape, but Lorgat said that as far as the Champions Trophy is concerned nothing has changed in the last 24 hours.
The Champions Trophy is due to start on September 12 after it was pushed back a day following concerns of starting on the anniversary of 9/11. The tournament has already been reduced to a two-venue event after construction work at Rawalpindi failed to be finished on time. All the matches will now be staged in Lahore and Karachi, but the future of the entire tournament is still far from certain.