Pakistan will Face “Legal and Financial Implications” If Pulls out of ODI World Cup

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, July 12: Wobbling between “yes and no” by setting conditions for playing the ODI World Cup Cricket Matches in India, the Pakistan sports minister has been served a stern notice by the Asian Cricket Council that the Pakistani team was bound by the agreements it have signed earlier and will face “legal and financial implications” if attempted to pull out at this stage.

As Pakistan continues to change its stance on the venue chaos pertaining to the Asia Cup and the World Cup, a senior Asian Cricket Council (ACC) has sent a firm reminder to the nation’s Sports Minister who threatened to not send his team for ODI World Cup in India.

The Sports Minister Ehsan Mazari had said earlier this week that Babar Azam’s men would not travel to India for the World Cup if the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) did not send the Indian team to Pakistan for the Asia Cup.

The ACC has pointed out that after Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) boss Zaka Ashraf and BCCI secretary Jay Shah met in Durban, it was finalised that the Asia Cup would indeed be held in the proposed hybrid model.

India, in all likelihood, will play Pakistan in Dambulla just like 2010 edition. Pakistan’s only home match in their country will be against minnows Nepal. The other three games are Afghanistan versus Bangladesh, Bangladesh versus Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka versus Afghanistan. Mazari, however, doesn’t seem to be on the same page as the PCB. He was quoted as saying that unless India come to Pakistan for the Asia Cup, Pakistan would not travel to India for the ODI World Cup.

A senior BCCI official said perhaps the Pakistan sports minister was “blissfully unaware” about the earlier meetings of Asian Cricket Council (ACC) where the all- powerful executive committee had passed the hybrid model suggested by former PCB chairman Najam Sethi. “We aren’t concerned about the internal happenings of PCB. All that we know is that PCB is a signatory to the Hybrid Model which was proposed by their representative and passed at ACC’s highest body,” a senior ACC board member present at the meeting said.

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“And just to refresh Pakistan’s honourable sports minister’s memory, it was PCB that had issued an official press release accepting that 4 games will be held in Pakistan and rest of the games in Sri Lanka,” he added.

As far as the World Cup is concerned, the PCB is bound by ICC’s Members’ Participation Agreement (MPA) which was signed by the full members in 2015 for an eight year period ending 2023. “Once you have signed an MPA, you are contractually bound to play an ICC event at a venue decided by the global body. Obviously security measures and other determining factors are always taken into account. But if a country pulls off even if security is not an issue, there could be legal and financial implications,” the ICC said.

However, the same MPA would not impede India for the 2025 Champions Trophy which is scheduled to be held in Pakistan.