The Asian Cricket Council (ACC) will decide on an alternate venue for the Asia Cup 2023 ODI tournament in March after BCCI secretary Jay Shah and PCB chairman Najam Sethi had their first formal meeting in Bahrain on Saturday.
All heads of ACC member nations attended the emergent meeting which was called at the behest of current PCB chairman Sethi.
The Asia Cup was allotted to Pakistan and is scheduled to be played in September this year, but in October last year, after the BCCI AGM, secretary Jay Shah confirmed that Team India will not be traveling to Pakistan.
Then Shah, who is also the chief of ACC, announced that the tournament will be moved out of Pakistan to a neutral venue, which incensed then PCB chairman Ramiz Raja, who threatened to not send the Pakistan team to the ODI World Cup 2023 which is to be hosted in India.
He wrote a stern letter to ACC as well asking for answers on this unilateral announcement.
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Now it is reported that the United Arab Emirates with three venues - Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah- are the favorites to host the tournament. UAE also hosted the tournament in ODI format in 2018, when Pakistan had refused to tour India, which was to host the tournament for the first time since 1991.
"The ACC affiliates met today and there were a lot of constructive discussions. But the shift of venue has been postponed till March. But be rest assured that with India not going to Pakistan, the tournament will have to be shifted. A tournament without Virat Kohlis, Rohit Sharmas and Shubman Gills will have the sponsors back out," a senior BCCI official told PTI.
One ACC insider said Sethi has just taken over PCB and if he would have yielded ground on the hosting rights in the first meeting itself, then it would have led to a bad imprint at home.
With Pakistan undergoing a severe economic crisis, PCB coffers would have seen a huge hole if they had to host such a big tournament albeit ACC contributing. With PCB hosting the tournament in UAE, there are chances for all the member nations to earn apart from broadcasters.
In another decision, the ACC has decided to increase the annual budget allocated for Afghanistan Cricket Association to 15 percent from six. It has also assured that it will help the Afghanistan board in all possible ways so that women's cricket can be revived in the country.
(PTI inputs)
