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| July 19, 2006 | Wednesday | Jumadi-ul-Sani 22, 1427 |
Poor facilities at Peshawar stadium irks ICC
KARACHI, July 18: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has expressed its reservations over the existing facilities at Peshawar’s Arbab Niaz Stadium, a senior Pakistan Cricket Board official said on Tuesday.
Abbas Zaidi, the PCB director board operations, told Dawn that the cricket board had received a letter from the ICC in which the game’s governing body had taken notice of the fracas that took place during the opening match of the one-day series against India at Peshawar last February.
“Actually, it was Chris Broad (ICC match referee from England) who was dismayed at the facilities and arrangements provided for that limited overs game in Peshawar,” Zaidi said.
“The referee had expressed his unhappiness at the lack of security arrangements and related facilities for the teams and the officials after a large number of spectators managed to barge into the ground.
“But despite the unfortunate fiasco, the match was played in good spirit with no untoward incident taking place,” Zaidi added.
Pakistan eventually won the high-scoring thriller by seven runs under Duckworth-Lewis Method after bad light forced an abrupt end to the match.
Zaidi, however, clarified that the PCB had not axed Peshawar from its list of international venues.
“Peshawar remains one of our venues for international matches in the future. But we have asked the Peshawar administration to rectify the situation before we review the centre for staging international matches,” he explained.
The official also added that PCB wants to take cricket control of Arbab Niaz Stadium in the wake of the ICC complaint.
“We are keen to take administrative charge of the Peshawar centre from a cricketing point of view. The PCB had already sought control of stadiums at Faisalabad and Rawalpindi, which like Peshawar, are under the control of local administration.
Prior to the India one-dayer, Peshawar was generally shunned by Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa in the past five years mainly because of its proximity to the Afghanistan border.
Minnows Bangladesh and Zimbabwe have been the only sides to have played in Peshawar after the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States.
Meanwhile, Zaidi reiterated PCB’s stance on Pakistan participating in the ICC Champions Trophy in India this October following the bomb blasts in Mumbai last week.
“The question of our team taking part in the competition depends on the Pakistan government. The security clearance can only be decided by the government,” he pointed out.
“Bilaterally, we have a very good understanding with the Indian cricket board and we are hopeful that the situation will improve. Therefore, at the moment it would be premature to say anything on Pakistan’s participation in the tournament,” he concluded.
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