KARACHI: India has finally paid the price for dishonoring its commitment and making cricket hostage of politics as the International Cricket Council has decided to forfeit India’s points from ICC Women Championship series in favor of Pakistan.
India was scheduled to play three women ODIs vs Pakistan between 1st August to 31st October this year, but it continued to play politics and despite efforts by the Pakistan Cricket Board, the BCCI refused to honor the commitment and backed out of the series.
The matter, on request of PCB, was forwarded to the event’s technical committee, which ruled in Pakistan’s favor by awarding six points to Pakistan women team.
“The technical committee was sensitive to the current state of relations between the nations of India and Pakistan, but concluded that the BCCI had not been able to establish ‘acceptable reasons’ for not participating in this series,” ICC said in a statement on Wednesday.
“India shall be considered to have scored 0 runs in each of the 50 overs in each of the three matches and its net run rate shall be adjusted accordingly,” it said.
India, by losing six points, missed the opportunity of direct qualification to women’s world cup as it finished 5th on table with 19 points, three points behind the 4th placed West Indies team.
Reliable sources have also revealed that India wanted points to be split equally between the two teams, but Pakistan Cricket Board resisted this move.
Meanwhile, the Pakistan Cricket Board has welcomed the ICC’s decision to forfeit India’s points in favor of Pakistan, saying that the decision has vindicated Pakistan’s stance.
“PCB accepts the decision of the ICC’s technical committee which has vindicated the PCB stance on Pakistan-India cricket series,” said Shahryar Khan, chairman Pakistan Cricket Board.
“It is unfortunate that despite our sincere efforts we have not been able to play with India in the ICC Women’s Championship. The ultimate loss of Pakistan-India series is to cricket,” he added.
This was not the first time when India dishonored its commitment of playing Cricket with Pakistan. The BCCI has also threatened that it will not play the ICC Champions Trophy match against Pakistan.
However, experts believe that ICC’s action against BCCI on issue of women series is a soft message to the Indian authorities by the International Cricket Council.
