KARACHI, Dec 14 The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Women's Wing on Monday postponed the ZTBL 1st Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto T20 Women Cricket Tournament, originally to be held in Lahore during December. According to the Women's Wing Manager Ayesha Ashhar, the tournament announced by the Women's Wing as a part of its domestic calendar for 2009-10 on Oct 20, will now be played in March.

“We had to postpone the tournament due to the security situation in the country,” said the former hockey player while speaking to Dawn on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Wing's regional women representatives, who had already announced trials to pick provincial teams last week, have informed the players appearing for the trials for the past several days about the change before asking them to go home.

“They still have the National U-19 Women Cricket Championship to look forward to,” said Ayesha.

Still, the fact remains that all the players appearing for the trials weren't under 19 years of age and are not a part of the U-19 Regional Inter-Disrtict Tournament that quietly took place all over the country last month, as claimed by the Women's Wing.

Also the question remains as to why were they even holding trials to pick the provincial teams after setting up regional cricket associations?

“No, no please don't confuse the postponed tournament with the regional tourneys,” said Ayesha.

“The Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto T20 Women Cricket Tournament was just an exhibition tournament, planned to pay homage to the slain former prime minister of Pakistan,” she explained. “It had nothing to do with our domestic setup.”

When asked if the Women's Wing was satisfied with the security situation for holding the U-19 tournament, she informed that the event was to take place in Karachi in January, which is more peaceful than Lahore.