World Cup 2011’s New Schedule | ICC Agree | World Cup 2011 | World Cup 2011’s New Schedule | World Cup

World Cup 2011 organisers have handed out Pakistan’s share of the tournament schedule, with 14 matchesWorld Cup 2011’s New Schedule, ICC Agree originally set for the troubled nation split between India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The saga over Pakistan’s status as co-host of the 2011 event has seen threats of legal action and even moves to have games played in the UAE, prompted by the deteriorating security situation in the Asian nation.

India will be played now 29 of the 49 games, including eight which were set for Pakistan, 12 will be in Sri Lanka (including four from Pakistan) and eight in Bangladesh (two moved from Pakistan).

A total of 13 venues will be used with eight in India, three in Sri Lanka and two in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh will now stage two of the four quarter-finals, with India and Sri Lanka hosting one each.

Under the previous arrangement each of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were to have staged one each.

The two semi-finals will be staged in India and Sri Lanka, with the final in India.

The meeting of the central organising committee was chaired by ICC vice-president Sharad Pawar and attended by ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat and representatives of Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.

Pakistan were invited to the meeting but no Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) representative attended.

It was also agreed that the tournament secretariat will be based in Mumbai rather than Pakistan.

Tournament director Ratnakar Shetty said: “We had a good, productive meeting.

“There was a recognition that there is much hard work to be done but we are confident we are now well on the way, with operational plans in place to become effective from the start of August.

“Moving forward, the COC will meet on a regular basis with everyone committed to a successful event, something we are confident we can achieve.”

The recommendations of the committee will now go to the ICC board.

In June, the ICC stressed that the Pakistan Cricket Board remained a World Cup co-host and would still receive a hosting fee of $US750,000 ($A957,854) per match – $US10.5 million ($A13.41 million) in total.

India to host Pakistan’s eight World Cup matches

Mumbai, July 14 (IANS) The Central Organising Committee (COC) of the 2011 World Cup Tuesday recommended that India should host eight of the 14 cricket matches that were scheduled to take place in Pakistan.

The COC met here to provide the ICC Board with a recommendation as to where, within Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, the 14 matches originally allocated to Pakistan should be staged.

Pakistan, which was removed as one of the host countries by the International Cricket Council (ICC) due to security situations, skipped the COC meeting here.

The COC said that Sri Lanka will host the remaining four and Bangladesh two. India will now hosts 29 matches, Sri Lanka 12 and Bangladesh eight.

The COC recommendations will now be forwarded to the ICC Board for final approval. It was also decided that Mumbai will be the secretariat of the tournament. Ratnakar Shetty, Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) chief administrative officer, was appointed the tournament director.

“We had a good, productive meeting. There is much hard work to be done but we are confident we are now well on the way, with operational plans in place to become effective from the start of August. Moving forward, the COC will meet on a regular basis with everyone committed to a successful event, something we are confident we can achieve,” Shetty said in a statement.

A total of 13 venues will be used for the tournament with eight of those in India, three in Sri Lanka and two in Bangladesh. All venues for matches will be announced in due course.

Bangladesh will now stage two of the four quarter-finals, and India and Sri Lanka one each. The two semi-finals will be staged in India and Sri Lanka, and the final in India.

The COC also recommended that a security directorate be formed under the chairmanship of BCCI president Shashank Manohar. It also said that a committee under the chairmanship of N.Srinivasan, the BCCI secretary, will take charge of the issues of inspecting venues and pitches. Preliminary inspections are likely to take place in October. (IANS)

India, the world’s largest consumer of gold, has imported the yellow metal worth Rs 76 lakh during first ten months of 2008-09 fiscal, the government informed the Parliament today.

Interestingly, the value of import during April-January period of last fiscal exceeded the total imports in 2007-08, which stood at Rs 67 lakh, it added.

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Commerce Jyotiraditya M Scindia said rough estimates place gold demand in the country at 700-800 tonnes per annum.

On gold prices, he explained, “The movement in prices of gold in India in the recent period is broadly in tandem with similar movement in international markets.”

Various factors such as demand and supply, investor interest, interest rates, movement in the exchange rate of US dollar vis-a-vis other international currencies affect the gold price, he said.

In a separate reply, the minister said that the country’s rubber imports stood at 44,083 tonnes during first three months of the current fiscal whereas exports have remained at 834 tonnes.

There is no fixed quota for natural rubber export on account of high volatility in prices after the lifting of quantity restriction from April 2001, he added.

-Business Standard.

On board Air India One, July 11 (IANS) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said talk of US President Barack Obama and his administration being not supportive towards India had “no basis”.
“I find President Obama very supportive (towards India). I spent considerable time Friday morning with him during the meeting (G8-G5 in L’Aquila-Italy),” Manmohan Singh said on board his special aircraft while returning to India after attending the summit.

“We exchanged notes on a large number off issues while sitting side by side at the meeting. I find President Obama very responsive,” the prime minister said “There is no basis for any apprehension that the Obama administration is not supportive towards us,” the prime minister added.

Though Manmohan Singh and Obama did not have any fornmal bilateral meeting in L’Aquila, they met during and at the sidelines of the G8-G5 meetings.One of the meetings was described as a “pull-aside” by Indian diplomats while another one was described by the prime minister as “side by side”.

Both leaders exchanged invitations for visits to each other’s countries. While Manmohan Singh will visit the US later this year, President Obama is expected to come to India next year.