LAHORE, June 9: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) may not persist further with its request with the International Cricket Council (ICC) to give permission for converting the five One-day Internationals against Australia into Twenty20 matches.

Pakistan are scheduled to play five ODIs and three T20s against Australia in August but the conversion would make it an eight-match T20 series with no ODIs at all.

The PCB is yet to decide a venue for the series after Sri Lanka has refused to host it. It is now considering the UAE and Malaysia for the purpose.

The PCB had forwarded a request to the ICC a couple of weeks ago for converting the ODIs to T20s but the game’s international governing body refused that, saying a team can play only 12 T20 matches in a year with maximum of three in a series.

However, in an ICC World T20 Cup year, a team may play three additional T20 matches.

The ICC had also advised the PCB that the latter would have to discuss this case at the ICC Chief Executive Committee if it wanted to pursue the request for eight T20 matches series.

The committee is going to meet in Kuala Lumpur during the ICC annual conference from June 24-28.

When contacted, a PCB spokesman confirmed that the PCB had made the request to the ICC. He added that the PCB had not decided whether to take the matter to the Chief Executive Committee meeting.

Sources said the PCB wanted to turn all the ODIs against the Aussies into T20s in order to get good practice before the T20 World Cup, which will be held in Sri Lanka in September.

They further added that if UAE is finalised as the venue, it would be easier for the PCB to play T20 series since the month of Ramazan is falling in August.