ACC names Sri Lankan umpire for Multan

The Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Friday appointed Sri Lanka Ashoka de Silva as umpire for the Asian Test Championship opener between Pakistan and Bangladesh starting at Multan from next week.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has already posted controversial match referee John Reid and Australian umpire Darrell Hair for the fixture. An ACC official said the Asian umpire for Bangladesh and Sri Lanka match in Colombo next month will be appointed next week. He, however, said India and Pakistan have nominated their men on the ICC panel.

Zakir Husain Syed, the ACC secretary, said from Islamabad that his organization was presently in no mood to approach the Indian government or the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to review its decision to pull out from the championship. "We will decide our future line of action in the ACC meeting in October whose venue is undecided but is expected to be held at Lahore.

"Besides, the BCCI have also not formally informed us of their position. It is yet to be clarified if India have withdrawn from the championship or will not cross borders for the Test against Pakistan," he said.

He said the venue of the final would not be an issue of concern if India back out of the commitment. He said India had raised the objection against Dhaka as the venue of the final. "It can now be played anywhere," he said. However, sources in the Pakistan board said the PCB and BCCI were to discuss who would host the Asian Test Championship final and the quadrangular one-day tournament title match.

"Since the quadrangular was to be jointly held by India and Pakistan, there was a deadlock as to who would stage the final. One of the proposals was that one would stage the ATC final and the other would host the one-day final. "And that's precisely why the two boards were keen to have the quadrangular final first so that they would know what the position of the ATC final would be," sources said.