A write up from Australian Author Adrian Meredith
www.facebook.com
How fair was the ICC's decision to reject Bangladesh's request to swap from playing in India to playing in Sri Lanka in the T20 World Cup on security grounds?
Before I begin my detailed analysis, it would be helpful if you read my separate articles that discuss the separate elements of this, with exact quotes, exact number-crunching and all of the relevant details. See below:
1. Explainer with exact quotes of all relevant issues:
Link:
2. What we know about ICC's vote:
Link:
3. Exact costs of adhering to Bangladesh's requests:
Link:
4. Exact losses to the ICC by having Scotland play ahead of Bangladesh:
Link:
5. Benefits to having Scotland play ahead of Bangladesh:
Link:
6. What happened in the 2003 ODI World Cup when we had boycotts:
Link:
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10164708088631155&set=a.192745811154
ANALYSIS:
1. Were Bangladesh's security concerns valid?
- Yes. In (1) I go over exact quotes that prove in no uncertain terms that they most definitely were, per BCCI quotes and actions.
2. Was Bangladesh's proposal to swap groups with Ireland too complicated?
- No. In (3) I go over exactly how to do it, and how cheap and easy it would have been to do it, at a cost of under $60,000 US dollars, which Bangladesh could have paid for as part of the negotiations.
3. Was the ICC's counter-proposal to play Scotland instead of Bangladesh easier?
- No. In (3) and (4) I go over exactly how much more complicated and expensive it is to play Scotland (about $340,000 US dollars), and also in (5) I go over just how little Scotland benefits from this.
4. Was it fair for the ICC to reference the boycotts in the 2003 ODI World Cup as a comparison of why to support it?
- No. The 2003 ODI World Cup boycotts ruined the tournament by having Zimbabwe and Kenya undeservedly make the Super 6 stage, with Kenya undeservedly making it to the semi-finals, as I went over in (6). And, furthermore, this is worse as Bangladesh wouldn't just be losing points but would be kicked out entirely.
5. Why did the ICC member states vote 14-2 against the proposal if it was so simple?
- In (2) I explain that they were not properly informed. We know for certain that official ICC statements misrepresented the situation by misquoting BCCI official statements on the security issue relating to Mustafizur Rahman's removal from the IPL, and misrepresenting the situation with the boycotts in the 2003 ODI World Cup as well as just how easy it was to swap Bangladesh and Ireland around, and how that actually benefits Ireland moving into an easier group and hurts Bangladesh moving into a harder group. The ICC clearly rushed voting without properly informing the member states of all of the details.
CONCLUSION: Was it fair?
The only fair element of this is that the ICC had a vote, but otherwise this had no form of fairness about it, and
they were demonstrably acting on false or misleading information without properly adhering to the known and demonstrated facts and not putting issues into proper context.
WHY DID THEY DO THIS?
It is likely that
these mistakes were aimed at protecting the BCCI for wrongly removing Mustafizur Rahman from the IPL. According to current BCCI statements, there were never any security issues in the first place.
If that is true, then they should have brought Mustafizur Rahman back to the IPL and let him play.
If there were legitimate security issues, as the BCCI themselves originally said that there were in removing Mustafizur Rahman from the IPL, then they should have accommodated Bangladesh's requests.
And, even if there weren't legitimate security issues, they still should have accommodated them in order to protect BCCI's inappropriate action in removing Mustafizur Rahman under the false claim that there were security reasons if there weren't any, and it would have been so simple and so cheap to do.
It would have cost around $60,000 US dollars to swap Bangladesh and Ireland around, while it costs $339,000 US dollars to bring Scotland in. They lose $27 million US dollars in revenue by not having Bangladesh play and only gain $640,000 by having Scotland play.
This is unjustifiable, and is clearly a cover-up to stop BCCI blushes.