The Board of Control for Cricket in India has ignored Cricket South Africa’s threat to stop allowing its players to participate in the Indian Premier League, the Times of India reported.
CSA chief executive Haroon Lorgat had written to his BCCI counterpart Rahul Johri requesting India to confirm their tour of South Africa scheduled for later this year according to the International Cricket Council’s Future Tours Programme. If the BCCI did not confirm its participation, South Africa would not allow its players to participate in the IPL, the report said.
Johri confirmed to the daily that he had received a letter from Lorgat. “I didn’t even bother to communicate,” he said, as quoted by TOI. “We will communicate when the time is right. The South Africans were scheduled to leave [the IPL] on May 8. So what’s the whole chatter about? I saw no reason why I should have replied to Lorgat’s communication.”
The South African board had voted against the BCCI at the recent ICC board meeting on revenue and governance policy changes. The newspaper quoted sources saying India could tour South Africa in January instead of December. The report also said that New Zealand could tour India instead of Pakistan in November.
This was in spite of the Pakistan Cricket Board seeking damages and compensation worth Rs 447 crore from the BCCI for not honouring the MoU between them to play six bilateral series between 2014 and 2023. “India playing Pakistan is not just about the two cricket boards anymore,” an official told the daily. “It involves the governments of both the countries and the ongoing geopolitical environment. Those are far more serious matters and it is not for BCCI to comment on it.”