World Cup preparations ten months behind schedule

The ICC has asked the 2011 World Cup organising committee to begin preparations for the tournament for which they are already ten months behind schedule.

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will be jointly hosting the World Cup expected to be held in February-March 2011. Saleem Altaf, the Pakistan board's director-general, said normally the committee started the work three years before the tournament. "The ICC reminded us that we are behind schedule on the organisation of the World Cup," Altaf said after attending a two-day meeting of the World Cup organising committee held under the chairmanship of ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat earlier this week.

"The ICC has issued clear-cut directives that the World Cup secretariat should start functioning soon, and Lahore has been chosen as the city for this purpose," Altaf said.

Apart from Altaf and Lorgat, N Srinivasan, BCCI secretary, Nizamuddin Chowdhury, Bangladesh chief executive, and Duleep Mendis, Sri Lanka Cricket's chief executive, Campbell Jamieson, ICC's general manager-commercial, and IS Bindra, principal advisor to Lorgat, attended the meeting.