April 26, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 19, 1429

LAHORE, April 25: New Zealand Cricket (NZC), despite confirming their availability in August for a short three One-day International series in Pakistan, informed the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Friday that they too would be sending a security delegation here sometime before the series.

“According to the schedule, the first match will be held in Multan on Aug 24 followed by back-to-back matches on Aug 27 and 30 at Faisalabad,” PCB Director Cricket Operations Zakir Khan told reporters here on Friday.

“Confirming the tour of Friday, New Zealand Cricket conveyed that they would also be sending an inspection team to Pakistan in order to assess the security situation here,” he added.

To a question regarding the venues of the NZ matches, Zakir said that since Pakistan will be hosting the ICC Champions Trophy matches in Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi from Sept 11, none of the New Zealand series matches have been allotted to those cities.

“We want to preserve our ICC Champions Trophy venues which is why Multan and Faisalabad have become our next best choices for the series,” he said while dispelling the impression that New Zealand had shown reservations over playing in Karachi.

The New Zealand cricket team had to abort their 2001 tour to Pakistan midway following a bomb blast in Karachi near the team hotel which took many lives including those of the French engineers besides damaging several buildings. The Kiwis, however, did comeback to play five one-day matches in 2003 as compensation for the aborted tour.