LAHORE, Oct 13: The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has not agreed to change the status of the first three-day match of their forthcoming tour to Pakistan from ‘practice’ to ‘first-class’.

England are scheduled to arrive on Oct 26 to play three Test and five ODIs.

The tour will start with a three-day match at the Pindi Stadium, Rawalpindi from Oct 31 to Nov 2.

Pakistan Cricket Board’s director cricket operations Saleem Altaf said on Thursday that a proposal to change the status was sent to the ECB to raise interest of the people, but they did not agree.

Saleem was unaware when asked if the ECB had made any request to shift the match from Pindi Stadium, Rawalpindi to Lahore.

“I have no knowledge about this proposal, so I cannot comment on it,” Saleem said.

It is learnt that the ECB, which earlier has got assurance about the Pindi Stadium’s structure after Saturday’s earthquake, requested to shift the match because the government has decided to use the stadium as the base camp for the earthquake relief activities.

He said that now the ICC’s decision on the suspect bowling action of lanky medium-pacer Shabbir Ahmad was expected next week.

The director, who was expecting the decision this week, said that he contacted the ICC on Thursday and received information that the concerned official would return to headquarters in Dubai from Australia on Monday and after which a decision would be announced.