India help Pakistan for ICC Champions Trophy 2009

Pakistan's chances of hosting the Champions Trophy next year improved Sunday after the Indian cricket board said it was willing to adjust its calendar for the sake of the crisis-hit tournament.

The Indian board, which had objected to the event being held in October 2009 as it clashed with its one-day series with Australia, said it was open to "minor adjustments" if other boards involved were flexible as well.

"There is no question that all the boards would like the Champions Trophy to happen," board secretary Niranjan Shah said.

"We are willing to look at an adjustment by a few days if everyone else involved is equally flexible," he was quoted as saying by the Cricinfo website.

The Indian board will also have to change the dates of the Champions Twenty20 League, a multi-million dollar inter-club competition slated to be held from September 25-October 11 next year.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive Haroon Lorgat is expected to visit member boards in a bid to get to them to shift their bilateral events to accommodate the Champions Trophy.

"It's a tough task for Lorgat, but he has emerged as someone who has the ability to build a consensus," ICC sources were quoted as saying by the website.

"He has two to three options to work on and if the boards relent on the dates, as some of them promised in Dubai last week, the dates of the tournament will be finalised next month."

The Champions Trophy, the second biggest tournament after the World Cup, was due to be held this month but was canceled due to security concerns in Pakistan.

The ICC said the event would take place in October 2009 with Pakistan remaining the first-choice venue pending a security assessment.

ICC Champions Trophy 2009 schedule still in trouble

The second edition of the Twenty20 Champions League will be held in September-October 2009, organisers said on Monday, dealing another blow to the crisis-ridden Champions Trophy in Pakistan.

The dates of the multi-million dollar event clash with the International Cricket Council's decision to hold the Champions Trophy one-day tournament in October 2009.

The Champions Trophy, the International Cricket Council's (ICC) second biggest tournament after the World Cup, was due to be held this month but was cancelled by the world body due to security concerns in Pakistan.

The ICC, while announcing the cancellation last month, said the event would take place in October 2009 with Pakistan remaining the first choice venue pending a security assessment.

India, Australia and South Africa set themselves on a collision course with the ICC on Monday by saying the next edition of inter-club T20 Champions League will be held from September 25-October 11, 2009.

With Australia due to tour India for seven one-day internationals from mid-October next year, the ICC faces tough negotiations to go through with the Champions Trophy on the allotted dates.

"The Board of Control for Cricket in India, Cricket Australia and Cricket South Africa today announced the dates of the second edition of the Champions League Twenty20 from September 25th to October 11th, 2009," a joint release by the three boards said.

"The 2009 edition will feature 12 teams and will see 23 matches played. It is scheduled during the prime Indian festive season."

ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat, in New Delhi to announce the nominees for the 2008 international awards, said the governing body will meet in Dubai on Thursday to discuss the calendar.

"A framework for the existing Future Tours Program (FTP) exists and we will work within this framework," Lorgat told reporters.

"I do not agree with the implication that the FTP is going out of control due to new events."

The inaugural eight-nation T20 Champions League, boasting a six-million-dollar purse, is due to take place from December 3-10 this year at a venue yet to be determined.

The event will be contested by the top two teams of the domestic T20 competitions in India, Australia and South Africa and one team each from England and Pakistan.

The tournament had been due to take place in September but was put back to December following objections from the ICC that it was being held too close to the now postponed Champions Trophy.

The recent boom in Twenty20 cricket, sparked by the lucrative Indian Premier League this year, has led to concern in some quarters about the future of traditional Test and one-day cricket.

Final decision on Champions Trophy venue in March 2009

The ICC Executive Board will take a final decision on whether the Champions Trophy, which has been postponed till 2009, should remain in Pakistan or be relocated during a meeting in March next year.

Sources in the Pakistan Cricket Board have confirmed that March is the deadline for confirming the venue of the tournament which was to be held in Pakistan from September 12 but has been postponed due to the security concerns raised by some teams.

"The ICC is having a meeting on September 11 and 12 to decide the best dates for the tournament when it is held next year. But the final decision on whether it will remain in Pakistan will be taken in March," one source said.

He said in case some countries still refuse to play in Pakistan next year, the ICC will relocate it but Pakistan would get compensation of USD three million which is the hosting fees for the event.

"The ICC member countries have basically decided to wait and see if the situation changes in Pakistan in the next six months and if this happens then the Champions Trophy would remain with us," the source said.

The ICC has also asked its member countries to send in suggestions for making slight changes in the Future Tours Program to accommodate new dates for the eight-nation tournament.

"There will be some changes in the FTP as the Champions Trophy where ever it is held will take three weeks for which all teams must be available," the source said.

He confirmed that the ICC Executive Board teleconference in which it was decided to postpone the Champions Trophy some members had pushed for the ICC to announce a new venue the same day.

"But we and India threatened to boycott the event if any hasty decision was made after which it was decided to adopt a wait and see policy until next march.

"The Indian team's tour to Pakistan from early January will be used to make assessments about the security situation in Pakistan," he stated.

Australia's schedule raises fresh problem for 2009 Champions Trophy

While Pakistanis simmer following the ICC's decision to postpone the Champions Trophy, Australia, one of the five nations who forced the switch, are already providing an obstacle for the 2009 event. While there are only two engagements listed for October 2009 on the ICC's future tours programme, one is the major clash between Australia and India and it will need to be altered for the global tournament to occur.

The one-day contest is currently scheduled for seven matches, which will take up most of the month, and Australia will have to squeeze any extra duties in between the end of their four-month Ashes campaign and the start of the home season against Pakistan in November. Australia's final match in England is a one-day fixture on September 20 and there are some in the set-up who are already wondering how to cram it in.

ICC Champions Trophy postponed till 2009

Next month's Champions Trophy in Pakistan has been postponed, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said on Sunday.

"The ICC Board today agreed unanimously to postpone the ICC Champions Trophy...until October 2009," the world governing body said in a statement. "Pakistan will retain the right to host the tournament but it was agreed that if other members continued to express reservations over issues of safety and security then the ICC Board would have the right to decide about the tournament's location," the statement added.

The decision followed a teleconference of the ICC's executive board. South Africa pulled out of the eight-nation tournament scheduled from Sept. 12-28 on Friday despite assurances from an ICC task force that acceptable security arrangements were in place.

England, Australia and New Zealand had also expressed their concerns about security after a series of suicide bombings. On Thursday, 67 people were killed in a suicide bombing outside a defence industry complex 30 kms northwest of Islamabad.

ICC president David Morgan said in the statement: "There was complete support and sympathy for the Pakistan Cricket Board and the situation it finds itself in, which is not of its making. "However, there was also a realisation that, under the current circumstances, some of the teams due to compete in the ICC Champions Trophy had reservations about touring there which could not be removed.

"In those circumstances it was considered prudent to postpone the event to October 2009, a time when we all hope conditions may be more acceptable for all the competing teams."

Sri Lanka ready to host Champions Trophy 2008

With the ICC finding it tough to convince apprehensive cricketers on touring Pakistan for next month’s Champions Trophy, Sri Lanka on Friday said in Colombo that it was ready to hold the tournament even at a short notice.

“We are ready to hold the Champions Trophy as we are the alternative venue for the tournament,” Sri Lanka Cricket Chief Executive Duleep Mendis said.

SLC officials feel that all the grounds are in good condition as the Indian cricket tour is currently on in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, a meeting took place on Wednesday at the ICC’s offices in Dubai to discuss the preparations for the Champions Trophy.

Saouth Africa Boycott ICC Champions Trophy 08 in Pakistan

South Africa yesterday paved the way for a mass boycott of next month's Champions Trophy in Pakistan when it announced it was pulling out of the little-loved tournament on security grounds.

The International Cricket Council board is expected to make a final decision on the venue tomorrow but the South African position - shared by England, Australia and New Zealand - leaves two realistic alternatives: host the competition elsewhere, which would anger both Pakistan and India, or cancel it altogether.

A spokesman for the South African team explained that the decision had been based on a mixture of government advice and players' concern, while Norman Arendse, the president of Cricket South Africa, called on the ICC to "reschedule the tournament as soon as possible". With West Indies yesterday appearing to side with the sceptics, the odds on the tournament not taking place have increased.

The South African announcement comes only three days after the chief executive of the Australian Professional Cricketers' Association, Paul Marsh, said he felt Pakistan was unsafe to tour, and security sources confirmed yesterday that the situation in the troubled republic had deteriorated in the last two weeks. Marsh's English counterpart at the Professional Cricketers' Association, Sean Morris, added: "We're all in the same boat. Where [South Africa's decision] leaves the Champions Trophy is hard to tell."

The gloom that has been descending on the beleaguered competition in recent weeks has extended to Pakistan, where the national board's chief operating officer, Shafqat Naghmi, said: "We are deeply disappointed and, when a decision was to be made on Sunday, we think South Africa made a hasty choice. Now it's up to the ICC to take a decision but I would say South Africa's refusal will hurt the event."

England will not make an official announcement until after tomorrow but it is inconceivable that the ICC can stage the tournament without the world's eight strongest teams, not least because of the disquiet that would be felt by the competition broadcasters ESPN Star Sports. An ICC spokesman was non-committal, saying: "We are aware of South Africa's decision but we will comment only after discussing various aspects of the issue during the ICC board teleconference on Sunday."

However it is understood that the game's governing body will discuss a venue switch today. Sri Lanka is the official stand-by host but South Africa are willing to step in at the last minute too, with the Wanderers ground in Johannesburg and Newlands in Cape Town both primed.

Even so the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, Niranjan Shah, expressed his country's continued support for its neighbour. "We are firmly behind Pakistan," he said. "If Pakistan says the country is safe to play in and the tournament can be held on schedule, they have our support. But I can't say what the BCCI stance would be should the tournament be cancelled or moved."
Since the ICC remains beholden to the whims of its constituent members it is likely that India's influence on the Pakistanis will now be crucial. The two countries have already threatened to boycott the Champions Trophy if it is staged outside Pakistan. But since the ICC's security task force has already failed in its attempts to allay the western nations' worries, the tournament's future could depend on India's willingness to appear as if it has lost the power struggle and lobby the Pakistanis for a change of venue.

The Indians may not be disappointed if the Champions Trophy fails to take place. Since they lifted the World Twenty20 in South Africa a year ago, the focus of world cricket's powerhouse has shifted from the 50-over game to 20-over cricket, with the emphasis on non-international cricket.

They have already had to move the money-spinning eight-team Champions League, which includes Middlesex, from September to December because of ICC concern over its proximity to the Champions Trophy. Cancellation may do little to discourage India's plans for Twenty20. The future of more than one competition could be at stake tomorrow.