What will be The future stance of Pakistan Cricket Board? | Asia Cup and World Cup 2023:
The overhaul at the Pakistan Cricket Board saw the top leadership of the Board being sacked and replaced with new but old faces. Najam Sethi took charge as the chairman of the Board in late December. However, after his taking over, confusion spread as to how the PCB will react to the prospects of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) moving the upcoming Asia Cup from Pakistan to a neutral venue.
These confusions were cleared by the chair after he sarcastically responded to a tweet of Jay Shah, head of the Asian Cricket Council, where he shared the Asian cricket calendars and pathways for 2023 and 2024. According to Sethi, the calendar and pathway were formulated ‘unilaterally’ without consulting Pakistan, who are the hosts for the Asia Cup in 2023.
The newly appointed chairman said, while quoting his Jay’s tweet, “ Thank you Jay Shah for unilaterally presenting Asian Cricket Council 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 the structure & calendar of our PSL 2023! A swift response will be appreciated.”
However, Jay Shah straight out denied the claims that the decision was made unilaterally. On Friday, ACC said that these allegations were baseless and the calendar was finalized in a meeting held on December 13, 2022. Moreover, all respective boards including Pakistan Cricket Board were informed about the proposed structure. Nevertheless, Najam Sethi, while talking to India’s renowned Sports Journalist, Vikrant Gupta, said that no consultations or even communication regarding the calendars in question reached the Pakistan Board.
“Taking decisions unilaterally is not appropriate. It [ACC] is a full council and according to my knowledge, no one was consulted,”
He added, “No email was received by us regarding this development. Even if an email was sent [it was sent to inform us only] we were not consulted,”
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The incumbent head of the Board further said that the Pakistan board officials even tried to reach their counterparts in the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) numerous times, but there still has been no response from them.
When asked what he plans to do if this issue is not resolved and Asia cup is actually shifted to a neutral venue, Sethi said that the Board will take orders from governments as to what the next plan will be, “We will cross that bridge, when we come to it. We will consult the Government [of Pakistan], if the Government says it’s [the moving of Asia cup to a neutral venue] okay, then it’s okay for us too.”
Following it, Gupta asked him If the shifting of Asia cup to another venue will have an impact on Pakistan’s traveling to India for ODI World cup, the 74 year old said, “That too will be decided by the Government then. If we get a green signal from the Government we will travel [to India] otherwise we will not.”
It merits a mention here that Ramiz Raja, the former Chairman of the PCB, strongly opposed the idea of shifting Asia Cup from Pakistan earlier. Raja even threatened pulling out of the World cup, should any step to deny Pakistan of the hosting right be taken. Asia Cup 2023 is expected to be staged in September with India and Pakistan sharing one group with Qualifier 1.
