Lorgat allays fears of World Cup venue delays

international Cricket Council (ICC) chief Haroon Lorgat said that work at five World Cup venues is running behind schedule, but exuded confidence that it will be completed in time for the event to begin Feb 19. The World Cup is being co-hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.Kolkata's Eden Gardens and Mumbai's Wankhade Stadium, the venue for the final April 2, are two of those stadiums where work in going on at a rapid pace.

"You're probably referring to Kolkata or Wankhede," Lorgat said when asked about the preparedness of the venues.

"Five stadiums are slightly behind schedule but we'll be done before the start of the World Cup. Most of the stadiums are complete and ready. There are no alarm bells ringing. I'm sure that we'll be ready well before the start of the World Cup," Lorgat told a press conference here Saturday.

"We would have liked them to have been completed. I certainly do not envisage, and all of our reports do not indicate, anything like what transpired during the Commonwealth Games," he said.

Lorgat also dismissed all security concerns raised for the cricketing extravaganza.

"We have matured a lot in terms of infrastructure, capacity, expertise, probably experience as well in terms of managing safety and security issues."

"All full-members (of the ICC) have now got a security manager and the ICC too has got a security manager, unlike in the past where we might have been relying entirely on independent experts or police agencies to provide the security," Lorgat said.

"Even in India now, with safety and security there is a lot of experience. With all of the internationals having been played there, with the Indian Premier League having been run there, it is a much more mature and robust process," he said.

World Cup squad to be picked on January 17

Mumbai, Jan 14 (PTI) The final 15-member Indian squad forthe forthcoming ICC Cricket World Cup in the sub continentwill be picked by the national senior selection panel onJanuary 17."The selection committee is to pick the World Cup squadon the 17th at Chennai," a Cricket Board source told PTItoday.
The selection panel, with Krishnamachari Srikkanth atthe helm, has picked a preliminary squad of thirty members forthe mega event, and the list would be pruned to the requirednumber as per ICC regulations for the tournament.
The list of probables already picked by the selectorsis as follows: M S Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar,Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina,Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, S Sreesanth, MunafPatel, Ishant Sharma, Vinay Kumar, M Vijay, Rohit Sharma,Ravindra Jadeja, Ajinkya Rahane, Sourav Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan,Parthiv Patel, R Ashwin, Wriddhiman Saha, Dinesh Karthik,Shikhar Dhawan, Amit Mishra, Piyush Chawla, Cheteshwar Pujara,Pragyan Ojha, Praveen Kumar.
The World Cup is to be held in India, Sri Lanka andBangladesh from February 19-April 2. India are placed in GroupB in the preliminary phase along with co-hosts Bangladesh,England, South Africa, West Indies, Ireland and Netherlands.
India and Bangladesh will kick off the tournament in thelatter�s backyard � at the Sher-E-Bangla National Stadium inMirpur.

Delay in verdict could be silver lining for Aamir: Lawyers

The lawyer of Mohammad Aamir says an ICC tribunal's decision to defer the spot-fixing verdict until next month will give renewed hope to the suspended Pakistan fast bowler.

Shahid Karim, who represented Aamir at the International Cricket Concil's anti-corruption tribunal in Doha, is confident the player will be exonerated when its decision is announced on Feb. 5.

Speaking on his return from Doha on Thursday, Karim says "it could be a silver lining for us" that the tribunal has delayed giving its verdict.

Three Pakistan players - Aamir, Asif and former captain Salman Butt - were suspended last September after a British tabloid alleged they accepted payments for bowling prearranged no-balls in a test against England.

Meanwhile, The lawyers representing Pakistan''s suspended pace bowlers Asif and Aamir todayexpressed satisfaction over the proceedings of the six-day ICChearing into spot-fixing allegations in Doha and are hopingfor a "fair and just" decision when the final verdict will bepronounced on February 5.

The three member ICC tribunal acquitted Asif, Aamer andSalman Butt of any wrongdoing during the Oval Test but delayedits decision on charges for the Lord''s Test against England. 

Asif''s lawyer Alexander Cameron was pretty happy with theway things have gone so far. "The good thing is that Asif has been cleared of chargesbrought against him for the Oval Test against England. We aresatisfied with the way things went at the hearing and myclient is hopeful that on February 5 the tribunal will delivera verdict based on the principles of justice and fairness,"Cameron said.

Shahid Afridi will lead pakistan cricket team in WC

ICC hopes for return of Pakistan tours soon

 Pakistan needs to convince international teams that it is safe to resume tours to the country, an official of the sport's global governing body told reporters on Friday.

Dave Richardson, the International Cricket Council's (ICC) general manager, said he hopes international cricket will soon return to Pakistan but acknowledged teams will only agree to tour if they are given reassurances over security.

International teams have not toured Pakistan since March 2009 when seven Sri Lankan players and their assistant coach were injured and eight Pakistanis killed when attackers opened fire and hurled grenades at their team bus in Lahore.

Pakistan blamed the assault on the Taliban, and the national side has since been forced to play its home series at neutral venues.

"We are extremely hopeful that international cricket will return to Pakistan as soon as possible," said Richardson.

"It's a security related issue where Pakistan has to convince teams in particular and the international community in general."

Richardson, who played 42 Tests and 122 one-day internationals for South Africa before taking the ICC post, is in Karachi to watch the final of Pakistan's premier first-class tournament - Quaid-e-Azam Trophy.

Pakistan had already been a virtual no-go zone for foreign teams since the September 11, 2001 attacks, which put the nuclear-armed country on the front line of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and the war against Al-Qaeda.

When asked how far the ICC's Pakistan Task Team had got with a proposed World XI tour of Pakistan, Richardson said, "We have certainly not got to the stage where anyone has said that they want to tour Pakistan."

Richardson said a decision on any possible tour to Pakistan would be made by the country's cricket board.