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ICC Champions Trophy

The ICC is going all out to convince some of its member nations that it is safe to tour Pakistan for the Champs Trophy.

Two groups of ICC Champions Trophy task team which recently visited Pakistan will meet officials and players from New Zealand, Australia, England and South Africa to convince them about safety and security measures of next month's mega tournament.

A group led by ICC Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat will reach England early next week and they will also meet South African team who are to play an ODI series there.

Another delegation to New Zealand and Australia will be led by ICC General Manager (Cricket) David Richardson. The group, which also has FICA CEO Tim May and Pakistan coach Geoff Lawson, will be in New Zealand on August 14 and Australia on August 15.

The decisions to send the delegations were approved last night following two days of observations, meetings and presentations received by task team members in Pakistan.

Task team chairman and ICC President David Morgan reasoned that the exercise was to ensure that every stakeholder is comfortable with the ICC Champions Trophy taking place in Pakistan.

"To that end, it was agreed that representatives who have attended the latest briefings and demonstrations in Lahore and Karachi will visit stakeholders who have expressed reservations to let them know of the safety and security measures on the ground.

"The results of those meetings will be fed back to me and also to ICC Vice President Sharad Pawar and ICC CEO Lorgat on August 20 so we can make a further assessment of the comfort levels of our participating members," he said.

"We are committed to a safe and secure Champions Trophy. We believe these visits and the feedbacks will play a major role in achieving those ends," he added

Explaining the decision to switch to only two venues Karachi and Lahore for the tournament, Lorgat, who led the task team's trip, said, "During the recently completed Asia Cup there were no fixtures at Rawalpindi and that didn't allow us opportunity to check the security arrangements, so there has been no way for us to formulate an opinion on the venue." "We believe that by excluding Rawalpindi and using just two venues, both of them successful hosts during Asia Cup, it will remove doubt, allow a further concentration of resources and improve comfort levels for all stakeholders in the event."

The visit to Pakistan has allowed the task team to deal in reality instead of theories or perceptions." The decision to focus the tournament on Karachi and Lahore was agreed by the task team and signed off by other stakeholders, including competing teams and player representatives.

Lahore will stage eight of the tournament's 15 matches, including the opener between the hosts and the West Indies, on September 12, the second semifinal on September 26 and the final two days later.

Karachi will stage the remaining matches, including defending champions Australia's opening match, against India, on September 13, and blockbuster encounters between Pakistan and Australia (September 15) and India and Pakistan (September 20).

Those members of the task team that visited Pakistan from Sunday to Tuesday included Lorgat and representatives of the Federation of International Players' Associations (FICA), the ICC's official broadcast partner ESPN STAR Sports and the ICC's independent security consultants.

The group, together with officials from Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), met foreign diplomats as well as officials from the Pakistan Ministry of the Interior.