The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Sunday announced a “blanket ban” on any future participation in the World Championship of Legends (WCL), and slammed the tournament organisers for being “biased” and hypocritical. The move comes after a sequence of events in recent days in which the team representing India boycotted their matches against the side representing Pakistan citing tensions between the two countries.
India Champions first gave their group stage match against Pakistan Champions a miss after which they also withdrew from the semi-final against the same opposition. Pakistan went on to lose the final to South Africa Champions by nine wickets.
“The PCB, during its 79th BoG meeting held virtually under the chairmanship of Mohsin Naqvi reviewed with considerable disappointment WCL’s appalling conduct of awarding points to a willfully forfeiting team, and the content of the press releases of the WCL announcing the cancellation of the scheduled India vs Pakistan legends matches, which were tainted with hypocrisy and bias,” said the PCB in its statement.
The PCB also slammed the WCL for its statement in response to the backlash it received in the days ahead of the match between the teams representing India and Pakistan. “The WCL’s apology for “hurting the sentiments”, whilst being farcical, inadvertently acknowledges that the cancellation was not based on cricketing merit, but rather on succumbing to a specific nationalistic narrative. This bias, masquerading as sensitivity, sends an unacceptable message to the international sporting community,” it said.
Earlier, it was reported that the PCB has banned the the use of the country’s name in all privately-run cricket leagues. Telecom Asia Sport, quoting sources, said the PCB took the decision during its Board of Directors meeting on Thursday in which senior officials ‘expressed frustration after Indian players twice refused to take the field against Pakistan during the WCL’s second edition.’
The tournament consisted of teams representing India, Pakistan, South Africa, the West Indies and Australia. All teams were made of former players with Brett Lee leading Australia Champions, Shahid Afridi leading Pakistan Champions, Eoin Morgan captaining England Champions, AB de Villiers being skipper of South Africa Champions and Chris Gayle leading West Indies Champions. India Champions were captained by Yuvraj Singh.
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