May 17, 2007	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 29, 1428

LAHORE, May 16: The Performance Evaluation Committee (PEC), set up by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to investigate the causes of World Cup debacle, will announce its findings before a press conference at a local hotel here on Thursday.

The decision on PEC briefing came on Wednesday after hours of uncertainty from PCB earlier in the day. At 12:30 in the afternoon, the board announced that PEC chairman Ijaz Butt would be holding the press conference on Thursday. About three hours later, PCB issued another press release saying that the media gathering had been cancelled as members of the committee have other assignments and a fresh date and time will be communicated later.

In the afternoon, however, a telephonic call from Ijaz Butt’s office said the press conference would be held according to the previous schedule on Thursday at 12.10pm. The PCB had not issued any press release confirming the new development stated in the telephonic call till the time of filing this story.

Ijaz Butt acted as chairman of the PEC and its two other members were Saleem Altaf and Salahuddin Ahmed.

There are speculation that since Saleem is a director with PCB and Salahuddin has been appointed chief selector, Ijaz has some reservations about the two members sitting in the press conference and may decide to announce the recommendations by himself in order to keep the creditability and neutrality of the committee intact. The committee, which was formed on May 31, started its probe on April 4.