Further delay for ABN-AMRO Twenty20

The ABN-AMRO Twenty20, Pakistan's premier 20-over competition, has been postponed yet again and is now scheduled for October. The final dates have not been announced.

The tournament, which has not been held since December 2006, was scheduled to be played from August 1 onwards. Earlier editions of the tournament have been huge successes. The first was held in April-May 2005, then in February 2006 and finally in December 2006. The finals of the tournaments have regularly attracted crowds of over 30,000 in Lahore and Karachi.

Although Nasim Ashraf, the PCB chairman, had said that two teams from Pakistan were invited for the Twenty20 Champions League scheduled during a ten-day window after the Champions Trophy ends on September 28, it remained unclear which teams would take part as the domestic competition would not have taken place by then. Sialkot Stallions and Karachi Dolphins were the finalists in 2006.

The Pakistan board had also revealed plans of an IPL-style Twenty20 tournament, the Pakistan Super League (PSL), in which international players would also be involved. Ashraf said the tournament would be held in September 2009. It's expected that the PSL would replace the ABN-AMRO Twenty20 in the domestic calendar.