By IANS,
Karachi : The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Monday decided to hit back at a wave of stinging criticism on its handling of Pakistan’s status as 2011 World Cup hosts, saying it did its best to stop the International Cricket Council (ICC) from stripping the country from the list of co-hosts.
In a statement, the PCB alleged that a section of the media is trying to wrongly accuse the Board of failing to defend Pakistan’s right to host its share of the World Cup matches in 2011.
The PCB also rejected the impression that its chairman, Ijaz Butt, abstained from voting during last month’s ICC meeting in Dubai in which it was decided by the ICC Executive Board that World Cup matches from Pakistan will be switched to other countries because of security concerns.
The statement claimed that Butt did cast his vote against the ICC decision.
“An impression is being created in a section of media that the decision of the last ICC Executive Board’s meeting held in Dubai stripping Pakistan of its right to stage World Cup matches in Pakistan was made unanimously. It is also being alleged that proper preparations were not made and necessary homework was not done in representing Pakistan’s point of view to the ICC on this issue.
“All this is mere speculation and far from actual facts. The decision of the ICC Executive Board was not unanimous, because the Chairman PCB did cast a vote against the proposal. Moreover, it may be emphasized that issue of taking the World Cup matches away from Pakistan was never on the agenda of the meeting.
“The item of agenda under which this decision was made out of the blue related to assessment of general security situation for international cricket. This is why it is the PCB’s stand that the said decision was taken unlawfully, without proper notice and without affording PCB a fair and reasonable opportunity of representation,” the statement concluded.”