KARACHI, Feb 14: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) faces a huge dilemma over the state of Australia’s scheduled tour of Pakistan next month with an international insurance company now expressing its suspicion over existence of the cricket board’s insurance cover if the tour is cancelled for security reasons.

During the opening match of the One-day International series against Zimbabwe last month here in Karachi, the PCB Chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf had told a media conference the board had insured the series for US$7.4 million with a renowned English insurance company, the Lloyds of London.

On that occasion the PCB chief was unsure if the insurance contained a specific compensation clause in case tour was cancelled for want of security.

According to Voice of America (VoA) on Thursday, the media representative of the insurance company has said that his firm doesn’t sell insurance as such.

Bart Nash, the Lloyds of London media officer, says: “We don’t sell any of the insurance. We provide a place that buyers and sellers can come together. As we do not insure things ourselves, rather act as a market for insurers, the best I can do is provide you with the names of the insurers that specializes in sports cancellation.”

Nash cited the name of Beazley, Hiscox, BRIT, Liberty, Talbot, Catlin & Kiln as the companies who are specialists in covering cancellations in the field of sports.

The official further stated that he doubted if the PCB had understood the deal they had struck with his company. “I hesitate to say that it is usually the client that does not want to reveal details of deals, so if the PCB have, I suspect that the insurance exists.”

If is the case then the PCB chief has probably landed himself in hot soup and needs to come out clean to explain this ambiguity. At this point in time, the prospects of Australians coming here for the first time in more than nine years are very bleak.

According to latest reports, some of the senior Australian cricketers have expressed their views over security fears and even threatened to pull out if the tour goes ahead, subject to clearance from a Cricket Australia security inspection team.

The security delegation is slated to arrive here after the general elections in the country on Monday. Cricket Australia has already written to its Pakistani counterpart that it has been advised not to travel.

“We are aware of the significant concerns that the players have and they are concerns we share,” Cricket Australia’s public affairs manager Peter Young told The Australian newspaper on Thursday. “We’re still moving through a process and we have a way to go before that process is finalized.”

The PCB chief had recently claimed that if the planned trip is cancelled, Pakistan may be forced to boycott the return tour to Australia next year and that Pakistan would not play Australia at a neutral venue either while also restricting the matches to just four venues (Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad and Multan).

But Young said on Thursday that the Australians want to have Pakistan touring their country in 2009 and said the PCB should take a lenient view of the current situation in the country that may change for the worst following the elections.

“We’re obviously keen to see them here and the circumstances of them visiting here have to be considered in isolation at that time,” he said. “The particular circumstances this time include significant concerns about safety and security that we just can’t ignore.”