BCCI President Sourav Ganguly confirmed that the resumption of the Indian Premier League 2021 has nothing to do with the cancellation of the Pataudi Trophy’s final Test, which was cancelled only due to the presence of Covid-19 in the Indian camp. Furthermore, Ganguly ruled out the possibility of the contest being considered as a one-time future event.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to interfere in a letter addressed to the apex body’s Dispute Resolution Committee. The ICC, which has yet to speak out on the subject, has exclusive authority over the status of the match, whether it is postponed, forfeited or abandoned.
Furthermore, Ganguly highlighted the BCCI’s perspective of not giving up India’s chance to win a series for the first time since 2007. “We want the series to be completed as this will be our first series win (in England) since 2007,” Ganguly said.
Test cricket is BCCI’s foremost priority: Sourav Ganguly
“The BCCI maintains that Test cricket is the ultimate format and we won’t compromise it for anything,” he made it clear.
Noticeably, with victories at Lord’s and The Oval, India lead the series 2-1 heading into the final Test, which was cancelled due to an outbreak of Covid-19 in India’s camp. Lancashire and the ECB have suffered financial losses as a result of the cancelled match, and the ECB will only be able to use their insurance claims if the ICC declares the match “forfeited.”
Furthermore, if the ICC declares the match “abandoned,” the ECB would face a double whammy: not only will India win the series 2-1, but the ECB will also be having a chance to claim the insurance since “abandonment” is not an insured concern.
When asked if the BCCI had offered the ECB more games during India’s 2022:Ganguly said: “We are ready to play extra ODI and T20Is and that’s not an issue”.
We are extremely disappointed that this series had to be called off: Ganguly
“Just that the Test match that will be played later will be the fifth match of the series, There is a precedent of series being cancelled because of COVID-19 in the past 18 months. The BCCI cancelled its home series against South Africa last year which cost us around 40 to 50 million pounds,” the former captain said.
“We understand how detrimental it is to the game in terms of spectators and viewers interest (TV and OTT) especially when the series has been of such high quality. Test cricket is BCCI’s foremost priority,” he added.
Ganguly went on to say that “The players couldn’t be pushed any further than that. No that [fielding a second-string unit] wasn’t an option. If you see the Yogesh Parmar was a close contact of every player. So obviously that was a cause of worry. It was something nobody had any control over and they (the players) had families travelling with them”.
“We are extremely disappointed that this series had to be called off. The only reason is the COVID-19 outbreak and players’ safety. We could only push them to a point. “But the pandemic is so severe that one can only go that much distance,” he explained.
