Pakistan Cricket Board Invites BCCI Secretary Jay Shah For Asia Cup 2023 Opener In Multan
Lahore: Just two weeks ahead of the upcoming Asia Cup 2023, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Friday invited BCCI secretary Jay Shah to attend the tournament opener between Pakistan and Nepal on August 30 in Multan. Incidentally, Shah is also the ACC president.
Besides Shah, the PCB has also invited the heads of other ACC member boards for the opening game. However, it will be interesting to see whether Shah visits Pakistan or not.
“The PCB has basically followed up on the invitation which was extended verbally by Chairman Zaka Ashraf to Jay Shah when they both met in Durban for the ICC meeting,” PTI quoted a source. It was Shah who first said that the Indian team will not visit Pakistan for the Asia Cup citing security concerns.
As a result, the PCB was forced to present a hybrid model to the ACC where the Asia Cup will be played in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. While Pakistan will be hosting four games, the remaining will be played in Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani media earlier reported that Shah has accepted PCB’s invitation only to see the BCCI secretary denying the claim. “The PCB was obviously embarrassed after the Pakistani media reported that Jay Shah had accepted Zaka Ashraf’s invitation and the Indian board official later flatly denied this,” he said.
Both India and Pakistan do not have good political relations. With the invitation to Shah, PCB wanted to show that they don’t mix politics and sports together. “The idea is to basically highlight Pakistan’s chosen stance on cricket relations with India that it does not mix politics with sports,” the source added.
The Asia Cup 2023 will be held from August 30 to September 17 across venues in Pakistan and Sri Lanka.