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The Asian Cricket Council is to seek the expertise of New Zealand Institute of Turf for developing good wickets throughout the continent. This was decided in the development committee meeting of the ACC held in Kolkata on March 29 and 30.

The institute is said to be the only specialised agency for the development of turf wickets. The meeting gave final shape to its development programme that will now be put up before the special general meeting of the ACC being held in Sharjah on April 15 for approval.

The Kolkata meeting, chaired by Jagmohan Dalmiya, the chairman of the Asian Cricket Foundation, decided to organise a string of umpiring and coaching courses in the region besides staging seminars for curators, which is said to be a totally new concept.

The ACC, the house agreed, would provide coaches to member countries, who will organise training camps on their own locally. A web site of the ACF will also be developed.

The meeting was attended by J.K.Shah (Nepal), Anil Kalaver (Singapore), Mazhar Khan (UAE), Krishnasamy (Malaysia), Zakir Hussain Syed (Pakistan, secretary ACC), Muhammad Naeem (Pakistan, treasurer).

The notable absentee was the chairman of the development committee, Duleep Mendis, who could not attend because of problems in the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, Lt. Gen Tauqir Zia, who is also the president of the ACC, has had a change of heart and, will now attend the Sharjah meeting.

Tauqir, upset over India's recent pull out of this month's Sharjah tournament, had announced last week that he would not like to chair the meeting.

"The ACC should cease to exist if India do not want to play Pakistan," he had said. Pakistan and Sri Lanka are the other participants in the tournament.

New Zealand have now replaced India as the third team. Besides Tauqir, the April 15 meeting will also be attended by Zakir Syed, Muhammad Naeem and Director Operations of PCB, Brig. Munawwar Rana.

© Dawn