Asia Cup 2023 / Pakistan came on backfoot! Many important decisions came in ACC meeting, know details

Asia Cup 2023: Controversy has been going on for a long time regarding the venue and hosting of the Asia Cup of ODI format to be held in the year 2023. Pakistan has to officially host it. Where India has refused to go to Pakistan due to political deadlock. At the same time, Pakistan is not able to agree to host it in UAE. In such a situation, the screw is stuck regarding the venue. Regarding this, a meeting of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) was held in Bahrain on Saturday, February 4, in which BCCI Secretary Jai Shah and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Acting Chairman Najam Sethi were also present.

According to the update that has come out after this meeting, there was a successful discussion in the meeting held on Saturday. At the same time, date and venue could not be announced in this meeting. For this, ACC has asked to wait for the next meeting to be held in March. According to the press release by ACC, the upcoming Asia Cup 2023 was discussed in detail by ACC. The board has agreed to hold further discussions on its conduct, timeline and several other urgent issues. Further updates on this matter (i.e. on venue finals and dates) will emerge after the next board meeting to be held in March 2023.

Pakistan on backfoot

If BCCI sources are to be believed, he said, be assured that India is not going to Pakistan and the tournament itself will be shifted elsewhere. The ACC believes that if the tournament is held without India's star players like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill, it will pull back the sponsors. This is the reason that Pakistan had to back down from its stubbornness. An ACC insider said that Najam Sethi has recently become the acting chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and if he backs out in the very first meeting, it would have reflected badly in his country. Therefore, this decision has been postponed till the next meeting.

Other two teams will also be involved

A major decision of this meeting has emerged from the press release issued by ACC. Accordingly, the board in the Asian Cricket Council also gave green signal to the team of two other Asian countries to participate in the Asia Cup. The board also talked about inviting Japan (Japan Cricket Association) and Indonesia for the upcoming ACC tournaments. Earlier, apart from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, countries like Hong-Kong, Nepal, UAE have also participated in this tournament as associate nations.

What was the whole controversy?

If we talk about the whole controversy, then after the 26/11 attack and then the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team bus, the Government of India had banned the Indian team from visiting Pakistan. Since then the era of bilateral series between the two countries has come to an end. These two teams play face to face only in Asia Cup or ICC tournaments. That's why when Pakistan got the hosting of Asia Cup 2023, the biggest question arose that, will the Indian team go to Pakistan for this tournament? To this, BCCI Secretary Jai Shah replied and left the decision to the Indian government saying that he would refuse to go to Pakistan under any circumstances.

After this, the then PCB chairman Rameez Raja refused to come to India for the ODI World Cup 2023 while giving a shout. After this the dispute increased. Then Rameez Raja's term ended and power came into the hands of Sethi. After this the schedule was released by ACC. On which Sethi accused of not taking the opinion of Pakistan. Then the Twitter war broke out. On which ACC stopped speaking of PCB with its reply. After this it was decided to have a meeting in Bahrain, which was requested by Najam Sethi. Now it has to be seen what is the decision on the venue and dates in the next meeting.