The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is in a clash with the BCCI over their stance on the Asia cup 2023. A major Clash emerged last year when ACC (Asian Cricket Council) president and BCCI secretary, Jay Shah, stated that India wouldn’t travel to Pakistan (citing security issues) and proposed the idea for the tournament to be conducted at a neutral venue. In response to Jay shah’s statement, the former PCB chairman Ramiz Raja who was at that time the Head of PCB opposed this idea strongly and even said that Pakistan would also not travel to India for the ODI world cup 2023 if the country is denied of hosting rights of Asia cup.
Many believed that Najam Sethi’s wise personality will cool the tension raging between the two Boards following the recent changes to the Pakistan Cricket Board, which included the nomination of Najam Sethi as head of the Management committee. However, Sethi, too, has expressed his views in line with his predecessor, Raja.After the schedule of ACC events for the calendar year 2023–2024 was released on Thursday by ACC President, Jay Shah, through Twitter, the incumbent chair of the PCB took a dig at Shah to express his resentment at not being consulted for formulating the pathway and calendar.
Sethi quoted Shah’s tweet and said: “Thank you Jay Shah for unilaterally presenting ACC structure & calendars 2023-24 especially relating to Asia Cup 2023 for which Pakistan is the event host. While you are at it, you might as well present structure & calendar of our PSL 2023! A swift response will be appreciated.”
The Asian Cricket Council (ACC) dismissed PCB chairman, Najam Sethi’s, accusation that the ACC had, unilaterally and without notifying the Pakistan board, announced the ACC calendar of events for 2023 and 2024.
According to the ACC’s statement on Friday, the PCB was informed of the calendar through email on December 22, 2022, but the Pakistan cricket governing body did not respond.
“It has come to our knowledge that PCB Chairman Mr. Najam Sethi has made a comment on the ACC President unilaterally taking the decision on finalizing the calendar and announcing the same. The ACC wants to clarify that it has followed established due process. The calendar was approved by its Development Committee and Finance & Marketing Committee in a meeting held on December 13th, 2022.The calendar was then communicated to all the participating members individually, including Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), via an email dated December 22nd, 2022. While responses were received from certain Member Boards, no comments or suggested modifications were received from PCB. In view of the above, Mr. Sethi’s comments on a social media platform are baseless and are vehemently denied by the ACC. The ACC’s Development Committee and Finance & Marketing Committee – the bodies that approved the ACC pathway structure and calendar – do not contain any representation from Pakistan. And the day the mail was sent to the PCB – December 22 – was a day of considerable tumult in Pakistan cricket.”
The ICC ODI World Cup and Asia Cup, two of the biggest cricket events of the year, could suffer significantly if this dispute over the Asia Cup 2023 venue between the two Asian powerhouses is not resolved.
