ICC may agree to local match officials in Pakistan

The International Cricket Council (ICC) may waive its requirement for neutral match officials in a proposed one-day international series between Pakistan and Bangladesh next month. The three matches, which are subject to agreement by Bangladesh, would take place in Karachi and Lahore from 16 to 26 April. The matches would be the first full internationals in Pakistan since March 2009 when the Sri Lanka squad and match officials were attacked by gunmen in Lahore.
Haroon Lorgat, chief executive ICC, has pointed out that safety and security is the sole responsibility of individual Member Board’s for bilateral matches and the appointment to matches of non-neutral match officials could be justified in exceptional circumstances. Lorgat’s statement came after the meeting of the ICC Chief Executives’ Committee which met in Dubai over the past two days. The executive committee went into details of the proposed Bangladesh tour of Pakistan and recognised that the ICC Board had determined that a decision as to whether a particular tour should take place or not is one for the participating countries and the ICC’s role was limited to considering the safety and security of the match officials after a tour had been confirmed and a security plan produced. The CEC also noted that in the event of the participating countries deciding that the tour should proceed and the ICC determining that it was unsafe to appoint match officials to the tour, a special dispensation to depart from the Standard Playing Conditions to allow non-neutral match officials to participate in the matches would be required from the ICC Board. While acknowledging that the granting of such dispensation must involve a wide range of important considerations, the CEC agreed to recommend to the ICC Board that, from a cricket perspective only, the granting of the special dispensation would be justified. Haroon Lorgat, the ICC Chief Executive, said: “Bearing in mind that safety and security is the sole responsibility of individual Member Board’s for bilateral matches, the CEC regarded this as an exceptional circumstance in which the appointment to matches of non-neutral match officials could be justified but stated clearly that it should not to be regarded as a preferred option or precedent if the dispensation were to be granted.” The CEC meeting recommended that the maximum number of Twenty20 Internationals allowed to be played by any international side in a calendar year should be increased from 12 to 15 in a year which featured an ICC World Twenty20 tournament.
It also recommended that the 2014 ICC World Twenty20 tournament in Bangladesh should feature 16 (instead of 14) men’s teams and that the tournament should continue to be a joint men’s and women’s event.