12 March 2009

Another ICC shambles

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse from the ICC, they have now decided to move the Champions Trophy from Sri Lanka to South Africa. What is the reason for this, you may ask? Threat of terrorism? Infrastructure not in place? No, this time the ICC has decided that it is because the Sri Lankan board cannot guarantee their will be no rain during the tournament!

The ICC are saying that due to the short window of 12 days that the tournament is scheduled for, they can't afford reserve days. If there isn't time for reserve days in the schedule, surely there isn't enough time for a professionally-run international tournament at all? Even if you did see the argument, what has changed since the tournament was originally awarded?
Yet again it shows that the game's administrators are a bunch of amateurs pursuing the cash at the expense of the image of the game and ending up lurching from one self-made crisis to another.
Looks like county cricket in April is on thin ice.....

2 comments:

Ed said...

I wonder if (should that be "presume that") it is really to do with the recent bombs and increase in unrest?

Andrew said...

This is the second change of venue, Sri Lanka was only a reserve location in the first place, and it was switched there in January from Pakistan due to a variety of concerns. You're right in that it's hard to see what they know now that they don't know then, although the security situation in Sri Lanka itself has been getting worse this year too.