ICC was ready to allow Pak extra time for Champions trophy squad

New Delhi, Sep 6 (UNI) Defending the decision to allow England extra days to announce their Champions Trophy squad, ICC Chief Executive Malcolm Speed today revealed that the governing body was ready to extend similar concessions to Pakistan but the PCB didn't make any such request.

Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul Haq's Champions Trophy prospects look bleak with the Multan player scheduled to attend a hearing for leading his team to a walk out in the Oval Test.

''England had asked us to allow then three extra days before they name their Champions Trophy squad. They didn't want to name the side in the middle of a series, which was a just reason.

''I personally had no role in it and if Pakistan had asked for similar concessions citing the same reason, we would have allowed them as well,'' Mr Speed told reporters here today.

Though the teams were supposed to declare their squad before the September 7 deadline, the England and Wales Cricket board wanted to re-assess the fitness of talismanic allrounder Andrew Flintoff and spinner Ashley Giles before announcing the Champions Trophy squad.

Mr Speed also announced that by tomorrow, ICC would announce the date of the much-anticipated hearing, which would take place towards the end of this month.

''The ICC and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) lawyers are working on the date but it has to be in the last week of this month,'' he said.

Mr Speed also defended ICC's ''final warning'' to Inzamam and the PCB and refuted claims that it was a muzzling exercise.

''There is this ICC Code of Conduct which has provisions against public criticism of or inappropriate comment on a match-related incident or match official. We have to admit that cricket had difficult times last two weeks.

''And we could have laid more charges against Pakistan during the incident but we thought that would have been unproductive because we were trying to bring relative peace. But that kind of comments continued and so we had to issue this directive. I just hope it's taken in the right spirit,'' he elaborated.

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