BCCI questioned for biased allotment of T20 World Cup matches
A lot of questions have been raised over the allotment of half of the matches of the upcoming ICC World T20 to Dharamshala and Nagpur, considering these state associations' ties with Anurag Thakur and Shashank Manohar respectively. The tournament is scheduled to start from March 8, 2016 with Zimbabwe taking on Hong Kong at the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) Stadium in Nagpur.
A total of seven venues were short-listed by the Board Of Control For Cricket In India (BCCI) for the ICC World T20 which will be hosted in India for the first time next year. Staggeringly though, 17 of the 35 matches of the tournament will be played at two venues – HPCA Stadium of Dharamshala and the New VCA Stadium of Nagpur. The remaining 18 matches have been distributed across the rest of the five venues – Chandigarh, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Delhi.
Speculations about biased scheduling has been fueled by the fact that the state associations of Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association) and Nagpur (Vidarbha Cricket Association) are from where the BCCI secretary and president belong . Nagpur, home of Shashank Manohar, will host nine matches, while Dharamshala, home of Anurag Thakur, will host eight.
The biggest game of the tournament in the group stage will be played on March 19, when India faces Pakistan, and Dharamshala – which has a capacity of just 23,000 - will host that significant fixture.
"It is not even in rotation that Dharamshala has been awarded the game. If you had a choice between 23,000 people watching India play Pakistan and 40,000 or 50,000 people watching, which option would you choose?" an unnamed senior board functionary was quoted as saying by Times of India.
Intriguingly, BCCI added six new venues to its list of Test centres - Pune, Rajkot, Indore, Ranchi, Dharamshala and Visakhapatnam – out of which only Dharamshala have been awarded T20 World Cup matches.
BCCI will earn Rs 55.2 crore from the International Cricket Council (ICC) for hosting the tournament.
According to TOI, Nagpur and Dharamshala are set to earn around Rs 8 cr from the BCCI for hosting these games. With so much money at stake, none of the BCCI officials are yet to explain the reason behind this scheduling so far.
0
0
0
0
0
0
Comments
Sign up or log in to your account to leave comments and reactions
0 Comments