LAHORE, Oct 30: The first priority of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is to set up the central organising secretariat for the 2011 World Cup, to be co-hosted by Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, in February-March, Director General of the board Saleem Altaf said on Thursday.

“According to the International Cricket Council (ICC) rules the central secretariat should have been set up in February this year, but I don’t know why it has not been made functional yet,” Saleem, who is also the director for the World Cup organising committee, told Dawn on Thursday.

Though Saleem was the director organising committee for the 2011 global event, he was ignored by the previous chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf as the former chief operating officer Shafqat Naghmi was sent to attend the last meeting while another one was attended by Dr Nasim in London.

Saleem said that the first one was held in Bhurban where Pakistan had been named as convener while the then president BCCI Sharad Pawar as chairman of the organising committee.

It was also decided at Bhurban that the central secretariat would be set up at the Gaddafi Stadium.

“The PCB’s priority is to get the secretariat functional as soon as possible for which I had already prepared a programme soon after the Bhurban meeting,” he said.

Saleem is going to attend an ICC meeting featuring the chief executives of the 2011 World Cup host boards on Nov 4-5 in Mumbai, with the ICC Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat in the chair.

The ICC rules say that the secretariat for the World Cup should be started three years before the commencement of the event, while secretariat for the ICC Champions Trophy one year before.—Sports Reporter