Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ramiz Raja has reportedly issued a stern warning to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), threatening to boycott the 2023 ODI World Cup if India failed to show up for the Asia Cup that is to be hosted in Pakistan next year.
BCCI secretary and Asian Cricket Council chief Jay Shah had earlier said that the Indian team would not be travelling to Pakistan for the Asia Cup, and that they would instead play at a neutral venue, ruffling feathers among the Pakistani cricketing community and causing the PCB to convene an emergency meeting with the ACC.
Raja, a former Pakistan batter who had taken up a career in commentary before being appointed the board chief, further threw shade at the Men in Blue, saying that the Babar Azam-led Pakistan team had defeated the “billion-dollar economy team” twice in less than a year.
“If Pakistan doesn’t take part in the World Cup scheduled in India next year, who will watch it? We have a clear stand: If the Indian team comes here then we will go for the World Cup. If they don’t come then they can play the World Cup without us.
“We will adopt an aggressive approach. Our team is showing performance. I’ve always said we need to improve the economy of Pakistan cricket, and that can only happen when we perform well. In the 2021 T20 World Cup, we beat India. We beat India in the T20 Asia Cup. In one year, the Pakistan cricket team defeated a billion-dollar economy team twice,” Raja was quoted as telling Urdu News.
The 2008 Asia Cup was the last multi-nation tournament that Pakistan had hosted, before the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team the following year brought cricket in the South Asian nation to a screeching halt and forced the PCB to conduct its home games in the UAE.
The sport, however, has been limping back to normalcy in recent years with teams such as England, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa besides Pakistan’s Asian neighbours (except India) visiting the country for bilateral assignments, including Test cricket.
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