It is therefore necessary to correct this misleading impression.

At a Board Retreat held in January 2006, the Board approved the Stanford 20/20 initiative being held under the aegis of the WICB. Thereafter, in March 2006, following direct correspondence between Stanford 20/20 and ICC, the ICC issued its approval of the event and confirmed that two (2) Full Member Countries, namely West Indies and South Africa, were authorised to release its players to participate in the event with certain restrictions on the title that could be used in relation to the Super Star Match.

At no time did the WICB agree to the possible dates of the Super Star Match with the representatives of Stanford 20/20. The possible dates for the Super Star Match came to the attention of the WICB when the ICC wrote to the WICB advising its approval of the Stanford 20/20 event for 2006 only.

It was while WICB was negotiating with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB0 that the representatives of Stanford 20/20 contacted the WICB to seek to have the dates of the commencement of the tour amended.

The WICB wrote to the Chairman of the PCB on June 19th 2006 seeking this amendment and received a response on June 23rd 2006 indicating that it could not be accommodated due to commitments under the Future Tours Program following that series for the Pakistan team in South Africa. This was followed by further discussions between the Presidents of the Pakistan Cricket Board and WICB at the ICC London meeting in July 2006. But again the agreement for change could not be accommodated.

A further request for reconsideration of the dates and reopening the matter with Pakistan was sent to the CEO of ICC as recently as August 14th 2006. We await a reply.

The WICB has given all practical support to the 2006 20/20 Tournament and is on record as having acknowledged the initiative's unparalleled contribution to rekindling interest in the game. But it must be understood that such arrangements cannot take precedence over established Future Tours Events.