Pakistan will not give up its right to host next year's Champions Trophy despite being advised by the International Cricket Council's former president to do so, a Pakistan Cricket Board official said Thursday.
Former ICC chief Ehsan Mani was quoted in Pakistan media saying the PCB should have asked the ICC to allocate a major future event in lieu of hosting the biennial Champions Trophy.
The ICC had to postpone the Champions Trophy for 13 months after four leading countries _ England, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa _ expressed security concerns about touring Pakistan.
"I was surprised that till the last the PCB was sticking to its guns to host the Champions Trophy .... it should have given up on the hosting rights and allowed it to shift to some other venue," Mani was quoted by Dawn newspaper.
The PCB reacted sharply to Mani's advice.
"It's his point of view but as far as we are concerned, we are not going to the surrender the hosting rights of Champions Trophy," spokesman of the cricket board Mansoor Suhail told the Associated Press.
The Champions Trophy was put back to October 2009, but India's cricket board has expressed reservations over those proposed dates, because it had planned a seven-match one-day international series against Australia at that time.
"These (dates) are all procedural issues which could be resolved with mutual understanding," Suhail said.
Sri Lanka was the alternate venue to host the Champions Trophy, but Pakistan refused to entertain a switch.
Mani, who is a Pakistani, said the ICC could have earned $50 million and every participating team would have received $3.75 million had the tournament gone ahead with a different host.
"Since it was known much before time that some teams were not comfortable about touring Pakistan for the Champions Trophy, the PCB should have taken the initiative by asking the ICC to shift it to an alternate venue instead of postponing it to avoid the financial losses," Mani said.
The ICC's board is scheduled to be meet in Dubai on Thursday, where there will be further discussion on the matter.
