Newly elected BCCI president Roger Binny on Thursday sought to lower the temperatures over the unnecessary brouhaha around next year’s Asia Cup, correctly pointing out it for the Union government to decide whether the Indian cricket team would travel to Pakistan or not.
Binny’s intervention comes a day after the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) criticised the statement of BCCI secretary (and Asian Cricket Council president) Jay Shah that the Asia Cup would be shifted to a neutral venue, saying it was “unilateral”.
“That is not BCCI’s call. We need the government’s clearance to leave the country. Whether we leave the country or teams come into the country, we need clearance.
“Once we get clearance from the government then we go with it. We can’t make a decision on our own. We have to rely on the government. We have not approached them yet,” Binny said in Bengaluru.
Earlier in the day in New Delhi, Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur, a former BCCI president, had spoken on similar lines.
“It’s a decision that will be taken by the home ministry,” Thakur said.
“The Asia Cup 2023 will be held at a neutral venue,” Shah had said. “I am saying this as ACC president. We can’t go to Pakistan… Asia Cup has been played at a neutral venue and it is not unprecedented.”
PCB has threatened widespread ramifications if Shah stuck to his stand, and as a first step, PCB would quit the ACC. It also raised the prospect of an “impact” on Pakistan’s participation in the 2023 ODI World Cup, scheduled in India.
“Pakistan will not agree to shift the Asia Cup to a neutral venue. There has been a significant resumption of international cricket in Pakistan with the visits of West Indies, Australia and England recently. Under the circumstances, if we agree to relocate the Asia Cup to a neutral venue where does PCB stand?” sources in the PCB told The Telegraph.
The PCB has also requested the ACC to convene an emergency meeting of its board to discuss “this important and sensitive matter”.
SportzPower is on the same page with Mint in so far as the concluding part of an opinion piece the business daily published late on Thursday goes. It reads: “… But the BCCI secretary spoke about where the Asia Cup should be held, which portrayed the event as dependent on an Indian preference. While the money generated by Indian cricket fans may give us heavy influence over key decisions of the global cricket calendar, stability in expectations must not lose out. As in any other field, sustaining the commercial success of cricket calls for an even pitch to be kept.”
