Last month, the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) announced that the Men's ODI Asia Cup 2023 will take place in September and India-Pakistan would be in the same group along with a Qualifying team.
However, there’s still uncertainty over the venue of Asia Cup 2023. Pakistan have the hosting rights but BCCI secretary Jay Shah last year said that India will not travel and the event would be shifted to a neutral venue.
The reiteration of India not willing to travel to Pakistan was made at the ACC executive board meeting held in Bahrain earlier this month.
As of today, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has not agreed to the demand, leading to a deadlock. In case, India withdraw from the Asia Cup in Pakistan, the tournament will lose its shine and the broadcaster could suffer heavy losses with no Indo-Pak games.
Meanwhile, a report published in PTI claims that the long-term lucrative media rights deal between the ACC and the broadcaster could be in jeopardy if a solution is not found quickly.
"It is not possible to have the Asia Cup without Pakistan and India matches. This is the understanding on which the agreement is based," PTI quoted a source as saying.
"Without Pakistan and India matches, the broadcasting agreement goes awry," he added.
The source further said that during the last ACC executive board meeting, PCB chief Najam Sethi made it clear that Pakistan want to host the tournament and they were willing to give all security guarantees to the participating teams, including India.
"Sethi has not said that the PCB could consider being hosts and split the matches between venues in Pakistan and UAE to allow India to play in UAE," the source said.
In an effort to break the logjam, reports have suggested that India might play all of their Asia Cup matches in UAE while Pakistan play their games at home. In such a scenario, the UAE will also host the final if India qualifies for it.
"This is not an option right now for Pakistan unless something changes at the next ACC board meeting on the sidelines of the ICC meeting in March," the source stated.
After the ACC meeting, the PCB had also threatened to boycott the 2023 ODI World Cup in India if the Indian team doesn’t travel to Pakistan for the Asia Cup.
"In 2018, India moved the Asia Cup to the UAE because of elections in their country (and) not because Pakistan said it wouldn't go to India for the event. So what happened in 2018 does not apply in the present scenario," the source said.
"Let us see what India brings to the table at the next meeting and we will (take it) from there," another board official said.
(With PTI Inputs)
