The 50 over format of Asia cup 2023 is scheduled to be held in Pakistan but took another turn when Bangladesh and Sri Lanka refused to adopt the hybrid model proposed by Pakistan in which first few matches were scheduled to be played in Pakistan and 2nd leg of the tournament was to be played in UAE.
Major cricketing nations have visited Pakistan including Australia, England and New Zealand and played full series in Pakistan. The Indian cricket board has refused to send its team to Pakistan citing security threats and on pretext that its government doesn’t allow the Indian team to play against Pakistan.
The financial muscle of BCCI has also used its influence on other participating nations like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to stay away from the tournament. And there should be no doubts that India is doing all this for purely political reasons — domestic political reasons. Despite immense pressure from the highly influential BCCI, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has quite commendably stood its ground. It has strongly defended its right to host the Asia Cup on Pakistan soil, rejecting any claims that there were security fears in this country.
Pakistan is supposed to host the ICC champions trophy in 2025 which is also called mini world cup, and India can use its influence to move out the major cricketing tournament out of Pakistan, inflicting serious financial loss to cricket loving nation.
If the Indian cricket team is unwilling to travel to Pakistan they should quit the Asia cup and other teams should play in Pakistan but due to financial and political influence on the Asian Cricket Council, BCCI has forced ACC to shift Asia cup from Pakistan. Pakistan should also pull out from the ICC world cup to be held later this year in India, which indeed will be a financial loss to Pakistan but India will be at the receiving end, losing both financially and politically.
The most amazing and astonishing part of India’s willingness to allow its other sports teams like Kabaddi to tour Pakistan would imply that PM Narendra Modi’s government either doesn’t care if their other sports team members are at risk in Pakistan, or that security is just an excuse to embarrass Pakistan and inflict financial harm on the PCB.
The Pakistan cricket board should also investigate legal options it can pursue against the Asian Cricket Council and, if necessary, the International Cricket Council (ICC), for clearly acting as agents of the political government in New Delhi, rather than stewards of the game. Even if such efforts fail, they would confirm the widely held belief that the Board of Control for Cricket in India, rather than the ICC, is the game’s governing body.
The Asia cup logjam should be avoided and ACC should use its exclusive powers to restrict BCCI from interfering in matters of the council. ICC should intervene and provide Pakistan what it deserves otherwise cricket, which is called gentleman’s game, will be politicised.