NEW DELHI: The Indian cricket board (BCCI) is aiming to snub Pakistan at the two-day ICC meeting which is scheduled to be held in Singapore from December 7, trying its best to keep Pakistan out of the six nations it will play during the upcoming World Test Championship.
The BCCI duo comprising its CEO Rahul Johri and acting secretary Amitabh Chaudhary are supposed to attend the ICC meeting and will also look to correct what current regime terms as a ‘flawed’ Future Tours Programme.
As per the schedules approved for the Test Championship, starting 2019, nine top Test teams will play six series over two years (three at home and three away) in the two-year Test championship.
It has been reliably learnt that during the upcoming meeting in Singapore next month, BCCI will name Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as their six opponents, thus keeping Pakistan out of the picture.
“The ICC knows the ground realities and especially chairman Shashank Manoharas who was BCCI president sometime back. We can’t play Pakistan as it is Indian government’s prerogative to allow us play them in a bilateral series,” a senior BCCI official said on Saturday.
He also hinted at the BCCI protest against ICC’s FTP. “We played 13 home Tests in 2016-17 season but in the whole of 2018, we will be playing abroad. Now what kind of FTP scheduling is this? This is where the problem is,” he added.
Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2017
