Has BCCI failed to be a proper (and safe) ICC host?

[hoshiarpurexpress]

Easy - how fearful BCCI/GoI is of Pakistan. Why else would you deny visas for Pakistan fans.

Given the stunts Pakistani citizens pull off in India we are fearful of our lives. In 2011 some 200 Pakistanis disappeared without trace within India.

 

[ghalib kichlu]

Its an ICC event hosted by India in India. So you will hear Jai Shree Ram or Shankha Dhwani as well.

If pakistanis have issues with India hosting ICC events, they can ask the ICC to take away the rights from India or Pakistan can boycott the event.

The daily whining is really boring from the fans of a pedigreed cricket team. This suits some minnow team fans not pakistanis.

So the biggest democracy in the world doesn't like debates on a international forum
What a shame

 

[emranabbas]

Given the stunts Pakistani citizens pull off in India we are fearful of our lives. In 2011 some 200 Pakistanis disappeared without trace within India.

never know someone could have kidnapped them and god knows what have been done with them, you owe us 200 Pakistanis
that's a security failure from your side that it self proves india isn't safe for Pakistanis

 

[hoshiarpurexpress]

its the reverse. But in any case, if India is not safe for Pakistanis then don't turn up for visas. It's as simple as that.

never know someone could have kidnapped them and god knows what have been done with them, you owe us 200 Pakistanis
that's a security failure from your side that it self proves india isn't safe for Pakistanis

 

[Bhaijaan]

Thank you BCCI for giving us the greatest World Cup of all times & ages.

 

[cricketjoshila]

So the biggest democracy in the world doesn't like debates on a international forum
What a shame

We don't like foreigners poking their nose into our internal matters. Not that it will affect us but still we don't like foreigners poking around and.

 

[cricketjoshila]

never know someone could have kidnapped them and god knows what have been done with them, you owe us 200 Pakistanis
that's a security failure from your side that it self proves india isn't safe for Pakistanis

Oh! So India isn't safe for pakistanis. Why apply for the visas?

 

[cricketjoshila]

You mentioned Karachi and Lahore first my friend.

Yes i did. Because people here think air quality in Bangalore is worse than Pakistan.

Now can you please tell us about the number of matches in Karachi and Lahore in winter in last 5 years.

 

[DeadlyVenom]

Yes i did. Because people here think air quality in Bangalore is worse than Pakistan.

Now can you please tell us about the number of matches in Karachi and Lahore in winter in last 5 years.

So you do believe BCCI has failed to be a proper host by scheduling cricket in northern cities in Winter?

 

[cricketjoshila]

So you do believe BCCI has failed to be a proper host by scheduling cricket in northern cities in Winter?

No. Except one match. Rest were no affected by pollution issues. And that one match was in Delhi. So don't know why are you talking about entire North India.

Now tell us about the matches in Karachi and Lahore in winters in last 5 years.

 

[DeadlyVenom]

No. Except one match. Rest were no affected by pollution issues. And that one match was in Delhi. So don't know why are you talking about entire North India.

Now tell us about the matches in Karachi and Lahore in winters in last 5 years.

You can create another thread about Karachi winters, we will stick to the topic here

England, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh all complained about the conditions in Northern Cities. They are not from Karachi.

Why did the BCCI play matches and host teams in hazardous areas? Can you please explain.

 

[cricketjoshila]

You can create another thread about Karachi winters, we will stick to the topic here

England, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh all complained about the conditions in Northern Cities. They are not from Karachi.

Why did the BCCI play matches and host teams in hazardous areas? Can you please explain.

Which cities did England and Srilankan team complained about?

Btw Pakistan team haven't complained about any hazardous conditions. Only few fans on PP have.

 

[ghalib kichlu]

We don't like foreigners poking their nose into our internal matters. Not that it will affect us but still we don't like foreigners poking around and.

You just like dancing with them on the pitch

 

[DeadlyVenom]

Which cities did England and Srilankan team complained about?

Btw Pakistan team haven't complained about any hazardous conditions. Only few fans on PP have.

England and Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have complained about Delhi and England struggled in Bangalore ( BANGALORE seemed ok to me)

They also struggled in Mumbai and Rohit Sharma mentioned it too.

I agree that Pakistan haven't complained so I still dont understand why you keep asking about Karachi.

Now back to the topic - do you think the environment the players from the aforementioned countries complained about was a safe environment?

 

[Technics 1210]

I spoke to a few of my colleagues based in India today and they have said the nationwide interest in this WC isn't that great and blames this on the gluttony of pyjama cricket. He said there is more anticipation for the next IPL.

 

[SpiritOf1903]

Unwelcome, feuding and beleaguered: Pakistan’s World Cup is on the ropes​

Unwelcome, feuding and beleaguered: Pakistan’s World Cup is on the ropes | Barney Ronay

Given the discord inside and outside the team camp it is remarkable that they have even a theoretical chance of reaching the semi-finals by beating England

www.theguardian.com

In the barrage of white noise around Pakistan’s cricketers at this World Cup, the infighting, the political posturing, the accusations, among other things, of eating too much mutton, one detail that may have got lost is the suggestion the players have refused to take counselling sessions with the team psychologist, Dr Maqbool Babri.

According to Pakistani news sources, “Whenever Dr Babri attempted to initiate sessions, players consistently asserted that they did not perceive the necessity for such interventions.” To be fUnwelcome, feuding and beleaguered: Pakistan’s World Cup is on the ropesair to Dr Babri, he has a point. Where, if not here, could half an hour in the company of a calm man with a couch and no internet connection be of more use?

There are two notable elements to Pakistan’s World Cup before their final group fixture against England in Kolkata on Saturday. First, the fact Pakistan’s campaign is still technically alive at all. As things stand they need to bat first, score 300 and then bowl England out for 13 in order to reach the semi-finals. This may sound like a steep task. But there are other options. Pakistan could bowl first, dismiss England for 100 and chase the runs down inside three overs.

Otherwise, Pakistan can console themselves with the knowledge that they have at least pushed this thing right to the end. Before New Zealand’s demolition of Sri Lanka on Thursday night there was still a chance the tournament might dish up the mouthwatering prospect of a knockout match between India and Pakistan at Eden Gardens – always a little too much to hope for at a World Cup styled as a coronational occasion for the BCCI, for India’s economic and cultural dominance of the sport, and for Narendra Modi’s brand of Hindu political nationalism.


Which leads on to the other extraordinary element of Pakistan’s World Cup, the relentlessly brutal weather around it. Any members of England’s camp feeling a little beaten down by the odd raised eyebrow after the team’s total collapse inside the secure and supportive bubble of ECB life may be best served having a word with their opponents on Saturday.

There is a trope, applied without context, that Pakistan cricketers are by nature brittle and collapsible things, lacking in some quality of basic grit. If anything the opposite is true. Consider for a moment what it takes to rise though the ranks, even with the aid of a little nepotism along the way, to become a functioning and successful Pakistan cricketer.

This is a group of players required to operate against a ceaseless barrage of external noise, a process intensified by playing in India. To this extent Pakistan’s tournament has perhaps been one of the most embattled, politicised World Cups of any team in any sport, a tournament where fans and media have been treated like undesirables, the team beleaguered from without and within.

A recap then, of Pakistan’s tournament. The most obvious start point: as of the end of October the players still hadn’t been paid for the past four months.

The chief selector, Inzamam‑ul-Haq, then resigned mid-tournament over talk of a conflict of interest after it emerged Inzamam and various Pakistan players are shareholders in Yazoo International Ltd, a company also owned by a powerful player agent. And yes, it really is that Yazoo, the milky drink, although Inzy has since revealed he originally intended to use the company to sell bicycle helmets (“unfortunately we didn’t achieve success”), which presumably clears something up.


The squad has been accused, variously, of laziness, cowardice and favouritism in selection. A PCB statement has been released denying rifts in the camp that nobody had really claimed existed to that point. There was outrage (and also support) as senior players were seen crying after the defeat to Afghanistan. Shadab Khan has been accused – weirdly – of faking injury against South Africa. Wasim Akram says the players look like they been “swallowing 8kg of mutton every day”.

Pakistan bowler Haris Rauf reacts while New Zealand’s Daryl Mitchell takes a run
Haris Rauf has been expensive at this World Cup, particularly aganst New Zealand. Photograph: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
As ever Babar Azam, the captain, is the muster point for this tournament turmoil. Babar has been criticised for swapping shirts with Virat Kohli. His private WhatsApp messages have been read out on national TV, collateral to yet another political storm. At one point mid World Cup he had to release a statement vehemently denying allegations he had been out shopping for “clothing and jewellery” in India, claims Babar dismissed as “misinformation, disinformation, or propaganda”.

The noise around Pakistan’s captain can be confusing. To the neutral observer Babar appears to be polite, mild-mannered and entirely concerned with making silky middle order runs. Yet he remains a wellspring of outrage and digital tribalism, condemned for perceived weakness and poor form, worshipped by those who like to worship distant cricketers (search: #babarazamisourredline).

Babar has been a lightning rod, like many before him, for internal tensions around city cliques and sporting-sectarian division. Externally, well, he’s a devout Pakistani Muslim slash sometime world No 1 batter, at a tournament where the shrillest, loudest voices are those of Indian sporting nationalism.

Certainly, India’s treatment of its cross-border neighbours has been less than hospitable, at what is technically an ICC tournament, but is in reality a BCCI power show. Pakistan fans have been refused visas and discouraged by delays. Of 200 journalists to apply to work in India only 45 were offered accreditation letters, and only after the humiliation of constant lobbying.

The team has felt the burden, too. Mickey Arthur has compared their enforced seclusion in India to being stuck in a Covid lockdown. Warmup games were disrupted by security concerns. The players were booed and jeered during the India game at the Modi stadium.

Against this backdrop it has been heartening to see Kohli maintaining his very public and supportive friendship with Babar, just as Kohli also supported Mohammed Shami when he was the object of religiously framed abuse. Kohli’s profile carries great weight, and these are significant interventions.

For all the noise around them Pakistan’s star players have still performed well below their levels. Babar has been a peripheral presence, with only England left to redeem a low throttle tournament. Haris Rauf has been regularly hoisted into the stands. His record in the game against New Zealand for most expensive figures by a Pakistani bowler at the World Cup was broken just 15 minutes later by the other pace bowling gun, Shaheen Shah Afridi.

Fakhar Zaman hits one of his 11 sixes during his brilliant unbeaten 126 for Pakistan against New Zealand
Pakistan win rain-hit New Zealand clash to keep World Cup hopes alive
Read more
Yet it has still been possible for Fakhar Zaman to smash it to all parts, for Shaheen to snake the new white ball around, and for Pakistan’s campaign to stagger along to its final hurdle still just about breathing.

It makes for a fascinating semi-dead rubber on Saturday. Pakistan’s cricket team are in a sense the anti-England. Here is a cricket nation that has everything: talent, charisma, cricket hard-wired into its daily life. Everything that is, except for power, stability, settled structures and a place at the main table.

English cricket must fret constantly over its own status as a moneyed minority sport with a shrinking talent pool. Pakistan remains one of the cricket’s great popular cradles, source in its diaspora, of players and fans, light and heat, in every league in the world.

Pakistan’s tournament will end in Kolkata, probably within the first 10 overs of the match. For all its low comedy, its notes of brittleness, it has, as ever, been an outsider story.

 

[BouncerGuy]

India-New Zealand World Cup semi-final | Mumbai Police receive message threatening ‘disruption’

“The threat was posted on X on November 14, tagging the Mumbai Police’s official handle. It also contained the image of a gun, hand grenades, and bullets,” an official said.

“The Mumbai police have launched a probe after receiving a message on social media about “potential disruption” during the World Cup semi-final match between India and New Zealand in the city on November 15,” an official said.

“The threat was posted on X on November 14, tagging the Mumbai Police’s official handle. It also contained the image of a gun, hand grenades, and bullets,” the official said.

“After the threat, the police are maintaining a strict vigil at the Wankhede stadium, where the match is scheduled to start at 2 p.m. on Wednesday and surrounding areas,” the police official said.

“Mumbai police have launched a probe into the matter and the crime branch has also been roped in the investigation,” he added.

SOURCE: THEHINDU NEWS​

 

[Cricket Warrior]

ICC criticised for lack of action over 'existential threat' of climate change to cricket

The International Cricket Council has been urged to face up to the “existential threat” of its environmental impact and sign up to the United Nations’s Climate Action framework.

The 13th edition of the Men’s ODI World Cup, which finished on Sunday, highlighted how climate change threatens the future of the game. In Delhi, extreme levels of air pollution led to Bangladesh cancelling a training session before their match with Sri Lanka, with fears that the match might have had to be cancelled.

England’s Joe Root described fielding in Mumbai, another city to suffer from severe air pollution, as like “eating air,” saying that “it just felt like you couldn’t get your breath”. In both Delhi and Mumbai, fireworks at the final group games were cancelled because of fears this would add further to air pollution.

Both India and England had to take internal flights between all of their nine group matches. The player of the match award for each game was sponsored by Aramco, the Saudi Arabian state-owned oil company.

“We as a cricketing fraternity must place greater emphasis on climate change,” said Daren Ganga, the former West Indies Test captain, urging the ICC to sign the United Nations Climate Change Sports for Climate Action Framework.

“Administrators must consider the protection of players in extreme conditions. Facilities must be adapted to suit our changing climate and collectively cricket needs to set itself a zero carbon goal. This is a real situation unfolding and I don’t think it’s sufficiently prioritised globally and from the ICC.”

Fifa, the International Basketball Federation, World Athletics and World Rugby are among the global sporting bodies to have already signed the Sports for Climate Action Framework.

“This ensures a bold commitment is made and actions will follow,” Ganga said. “Sport is a victim of climate change, but it’s also a contributor of climate change. And this has to bring about action.”

Ganga called upon the ICC to transform how they think about their environmental footprint at all levels, highlighting the production of kit and recycling measures at grounds.

“There needs to be positive management of supply chains and manufacturing of items related to cricket. Insist that manufacturing standards incorporate more sustainable materials and promote shorter environmentally friendly supply chains. Upscale recycling. Collective action is required, time is running out since sport and cricket face an existential threat.”

“Cricket is among the most climate change-impacted sports,” said Madeleine Orr, assistant professor of Sport Ecology at the University of Toronto and the founder of the Sport Ecology Group.

“At this most recent World Cup, air pollution was a top concern and so was extreme heat. The future of cricket will depend on significant action by every level of management to adapt to these conditions. We will need to see heat policies and air pollution policies, strong medical teams and emergency protocols, and these measures will need to be taken at every level of the sport, right down to the little kids’ teams.”

Despite some worthwhile local initiatives, Orr said that there had been “nothing systemic across the sport” on climate change, calling upon the ICC to play a leadership role. She also highlighted the willingness of the ICC, like many other sports governing bodies, to enter agreements with Aramco.

“Fossil fuel sponsors, despite being a stain on the credibility of sport organisations - especially in relation to their sustainability efforts - remain ubiquitous in sport. So, it’s hard to pick on the ICC-Aramco partnership when there are so many others just like it. But in a world on fire, I would hope the ICC moves away from this funder as soon as possible.”

Areeba Hamid, the joint executive director at Greenpeace UK, also called on the ICC to become more environmentally aware.

“The impacts of climate change are felt by all, and countries vulnerable to climate change like India face particular challenges. Rather than cosying up with big oil, the ICC should be going out to bat for a sustainable future for the sport and the planet.”

ICC criticised for lack of action over 'existential threat' of climate change to cricket

The International Cricket Council has been urged to face up to the “existential threat” of its environmental impact and sign up to the United Nations’s Climate Action framework.

ca.finance.yahoo.com