KARACHI - ICC Chief Executive Officer Haroon Lorgat, who is leading the ICC task force to Pakistan to asses security arrangements for next month's Champions Trophy, has said that the sanctity of the holy month of Ramazan will be observed during the championships which is expected to start on 10th of Ramazan. Talking to the media after a two-and-half hour visit to the National Stadium one of the venues of the trophy here on Tuesday afternoon, the ICC chief executive said the ICC was aware of the sanctity of the holy month of Ramazan and added that the timings of the matches had already been revised to give players and the spectators time for "iftar" break and carry out other religious obligations. Other members of the specially set up ICC Task Force who accompanied Haroon Lorgat on his visit to the National Stadium were Campbell Jemison, David Richardson, Brain Murgatroyed, Tom Harrison and Tim May. During the question and answer session, he again made it clear that the Champions Trophy would be held as scheduled in Pakistan and said that Sri Lanka was the back up venue of the event. He said there were no two opinions on where the Trophy would be held. He stressed that it would be held in Pakistan as scheduled and hoped that all the teams who had agreed to appear in the event would play in the championship. When asked would financial penalties would be imposed on teams who refused to play or skip the event, he said all the team had signed agreements and given assurance to play in the championship and that agreement would be implemented in letter and spirit. He said he and his team were impressed with the security arrangements on its current visit and that they also had the feed back of the Asia Cup which was held recently. He said the administration both at Lahore and Karachi had given physical demonstration of the security which would be in place for the championship. "We have observed the security arrangements personally and would convey the confidence that they had felt to countries like England, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa," he added. It may be mentioned that these countries had expressed reservations on the security situation in Pakistan and had shown reluctance to play. The ICC set up a task force to asses the security situation first hand .The task force on Tuesday completed its tour of the venues where the event would be held with a visit to the National Stadium. He said the members of the task force who were in Pakistan would get into touch with three other members of the task force who could not make the trip and would give them their observation on the visit. The Task force would also visit England, Australia, New Zealand South Africa to brief the boards and the players of those countries about the security situation. "We would convey to them our observation about our tour here on the security situation and would convey them our thoughts on the situation. But he said it was always difficult to convince some one who was sitting far away. The ICC task force would try to convince them what they had seen in Pakistan but it can not force them to play, he said. He said Pakistan's Australian Coach Geoff Lawson has volunteered to join the task force to convince Australian players and the PCB had agreed to send Lawson to Australia on a brief visit with the approval of the PCB. He said as Lawson was living in Lahore and has seen and felt the situation personally, he could be of great help in convincing the Australian players. Lawson left Lahore on Monday late night for Australia. Lorgat said the task Force team had two fruitful days in Pakistan. It visited Rawalpindi and Lahore where they were given briefing about the security and other related matters. He said as Rawalpindi had not held any Asia Cup match there was little in put of the security situation like Lahore and Karachi venues which hosted Asia Cup matches. The Sindh Police held a full dress rehearsal of the security that would be put in place during the championship that starts September 12. Karachi CCPO Waseem Ahmed briefed the members of the task force at the National Stadium on the security arrangements with the assistance of a number of high police officials. About 5000 policeman were deputed all along the route on which the members of the task force traveled in a heavily escorted bus to give the visiting members a feeling about what would kind of security would be provided to the visiting teams during the competition. About sixteen police vans loaded with armed policeman drove in front and behind the bus which followed a siren wailing police motor cycle. At the National Stadium heavy contingents of police manned all the gates as they would do in the championship. High ranking police officials were on hand to give briefing to the ICC task force which had already visited Rawalpindi and Lahore before arriving here. The team was to arrive here around one in the afternoon but after flight departure from Lahore due to monsoon rains the team landed here around 3 in the afternoon and reached at the National Stadium around 3.20 PM.