Australia appears on the verge of pulling out of next month's Champions Trophy in Pakistan after it was revealed last week's meeting with the International Cricket Council failed to ease players' fears regarding security in the strife-torn country.
Australian players and officials met with an ICC delegation in Melbourne last week.
That delegation, which included Pakistan's Australian-born coach Geoff Lawson, had sought to provide enough evidence of the security measures in place for the eight-team tournament, which begins on September 12, to ease the Australians' nerves.
However, Australia Cricketers' Association boss Paul Marsh said the meeting had failed to ease those concerns.
"Our position is that we can't recommend the players tour Pakistan for the Champions Trophy," Marsh told The Daily Telegraph.
"Obviously we put a position forward a few weeks ago (to the ICC) to that effect but we said we would keep an open mind with the taskforce, which we did."
"We heard them speak on Friday. Now we have had a chance to digest it all, our position hasn't changed."
"We have concerns with every aspect of this (tournament) at the moment."
Those concerns would not have been aided on Tuesday when a suicide bomber killed 23 people in a hospital in Peshawar, just a day after Pervez Musharraf stood down as Pakistan president.
Australia's expected absence has opened up the very real possibility that the tournament will be shorn of its defending champion with the participation of New Zealand, South Africa and England also in doubt after all three convened for similar meetings with the ICC in the past week.
ICC general manager of cricket Dave Richardson revealed that the game's governing body was still considering the option of moving the tournament away from Pakistan.
Sri Lanka has been mooted as a possible alternative and a final decision on the scheduling of the tournament is expected to be made when the ICC meets in Dubai on Wednesday.