| The International Cricket Council said on Monday no agreement had been reached on where Pakistan will hold its World Cup matches in February-March 2011.
"No decision has been made yet," ICC president David Morgan told a media briefing after a meeting with officials from the four co-hosts nations, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Pakistan had served legal notices on the ICC after being stripped of hosting rights in the wake of the militant attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore on March 3 and the deteriorating security situation in the volatile nation.
Morgan clarified that while Pakistan were removed as a host location, the Pakistan Cricket Board remained a co-host and expected a final decision to be made "in the next two weeks."
The ICC clarification was viewed as an attempt to open doors to a negotiated settlement, but that appeared to have failed at Monday's meeting on the sidelines of the World Twenty20.
Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ijaz Butt told reporters as he left the three-hour meeting that he wanted Pakistan's share of 14 matches to be held on home soil.
Morgan and ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said that while the PCB had put the legal proceedings on hold, it had already been decided that World Cup matches will not be played in Pakistan.
"This meeting was the first occasion to settle misunderstandings," Lorgat told reporters.
"All we did today was to clarify to the PCB that there will be no matches in Pakistan."
Morgan added: "We want to ensure Pakistan remains a host nation and we stress the importance of Pakistan as a cricketing nation."
The ICC officials did not rule out the possibility of Pakistan holding its matches in the United Arab Emirates, where it hosted a one-day series against Australia in May-June in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
"There are already four host nations," said Morgan. "There could be a fifth country hosting matches."
Morgan declined to comment on the response of India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to the current impasse.
Morgan, however, ruled out switching the 2011 World Cup to Australia and New Zealand, the designated hosts of the 2015 event.
"We did discuss the possibility of giving the 2011 World Cup to Australia and New Zealand, but that is not an option," he said. "Those two countries will hold the tournament in 2015."
Morgan said in a statement that he was "pleased we were able to come together today in a spirit of co-operation to further the process of finding a resolution to the matter.
"We had constructive discussions and I will look to follow them through with Mr Pawar (ICC vice president Sharad Pawar of India) and Mr Butt in the coming days so we can identify the best means of coming up with a recommendation on where the matches originally scheduled to take place in Pakistan can be held.
"What we need to do is settle this matter as quicky as possible within the ICC family as we need to press on with our preparations for the World Cup whcih is less than two years away." |
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