Karachi ignored as Lahore to stage showpiece Test against India

Lahore was named as the venue of the historic Sept 13-17 Pakistan versus India match in the Asian Test Championship this year.

"Lahore will host the match because it is the headquarters of cricket in Pakistan," chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board Lt Gen Tauqir Zia said from London Wednesday.

Zia, who is also the chairman of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), said Multan will have a second Test centre when it will stage the Sept 1 to 5 Pakistan versus Bangladesh game at the Multan Cricket Club (MCC).

Qasim Bagh in M ultan hosted the Pakistan versus West Indies Test in 1981, will join Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar as a city to have two Test centres.

India will play Pakistan in Pakistan for the first time in 12 years. On their previous tour, Lahore went down in the annals of history as the Test in which Javed Miandad scored a century on his 100th Test appearance.

The PCB had earlier suggested that Karachi might stage the match but had to fall back on Lahore "because of commercial purposes and other reasons".

Karachi's case to host the showpiece match also weakened as the National Stadium is to undergo an extensive uplifting from July. According to the initial proposal, the seating capacity of the stadium would be doubled from the present 34,000.

In addition to this, the Indians had a bitter experience of playing in Karachi when on their previous tour, a spectators jumped fences and allegedly attacked touring skipper Kris Srikkanth with a knife.

Karachi's National Stadium must hold special places for Waqar Younis and Sachin Tendulkar who began their glittering careers from here.

In spite of solid reasons, Karachi has been ignored for big matches in the 2001-02 international season.

The National Stadium will only stage the Pakistan versus New Zealand one-dayer while the other two will be played at the Qadhafi and Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. The New Zealand Tests are slated for Lahore, Peshawar and Faisalabad.

With the Asian Test championship can now only be held in Pakistan if Pakistan and Sri Lanka qualify for the final, all eyes will be focused if the National Stadium gets any Test early next year when the West Indies arrive for a three-Test series.

The series will be followed up by a quadrangular tournament in which India and Zimbabwe will also take part.

The secretary of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Zakir Husain Syed said from Islamabad that it was the prerogative of the host board to finalize the Asian Test Championship venue.

"The ACC cannot dictate to the host board. If Pakistan plans to hold matches at Lahore and Multan, India can decide where to play Bangladesh or it will be Sri Lanka's decision to decide the venue for its match against Pakistan," Zakir said shortly after returning from England.

The ACC secretary said the itinerary of the Asian Test Championship had been finalized after some adjustments. "The dates of the matches might be brought a day or two earlier to accommodate the teams.

"Pakistan's match against India might now be played between Sept 14 and 18."

Zakir said the Asia Cup one-day tournament was finalized during the ACC meeting for late August and early September next year in Pakistan. India has agreed to participate, he said.

"We didn't ask to submit their participation in writing. But their decision has been recorded. Besides, they were also party to the decision in which Pakistan was officially awarded the competition."

The ACC secretary said the format of the Asia Cup was also decided and hoped that it would attract the sponsors and audience.

He said the six teams - Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, UAE and Hong Kong - will be divided in two pools with the top two teams from each pool to qualify fo the Super League stage. Best two teams from the single league will reach the final, likely to be staged under floodlights.