Dr Nasim Ashraf elected first Pakistani head of ACC

KARACHI - Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Dr. Nasim Ashraf was unanimously elected President of the Asian Cricket Council at a local hotel here on Sunday.
Pakistan, with other cricket playing countries of the sub continent 24 years ago at the biennial AGM of the body held here at a local hotel.
Shortly after taking over the reins of the Asian body, Dr. Nasim Ashraf held a media briefing in which he provided the details of the decisions taken at the meeting which also unanimously elected P Krhishnamurthy of Malaysia as the vice president.
The Pakistani president said that the AGM had approved a biennial budget of 4.5 million dollar which mostly will be spent on the development activities in the associate and affiliate units of the ACC. The money would be spent on developing infrastructure in cricket developing countries of the continent.
He said the AGM had decided to host next Asia cup in any of the associate member country. The host country of next Asia Cup in 2010,he said would be named in due course of time. Holding the Cup elsewhere other than a full member country was aimed at promoting the game in the continent.
He said both the ACC and Pakistan would give special attention to promoting the game in Afghanistan where the national team had done well at international level. Iran where cricket is gaining popularity particularly among women, Pakistan would make special effort through the ACC to further develop the game there. He particularly praised the interest women were taking in cricket in Iran and said all support would be given to them so that they could play at Asian level.
He said women cricket in Pakistan had gone along way and the Pakistani women's team had done well by qualifying for the world women's cricket in Australia.
Pakistani team would also play in an international women's T20 event in Thailand next year.
The game would also be played as competitive sport at the 2010 Beijing Asian games and Pakistan would enter both mens and women's teams in the competition.
He said that the Afro-Asian test championship would be held as scheduled in Zimbabwe and hoped that some of the hurdles created by political situation in the host country were removed in time. He said the ICC was already engaged on cricketing issues in Zimbabwe as it was its domain.