Tool of cricket
Pakistan has warned that Asian Cricket Council (ACC) President Jay Shah’s threat to pull the 2023 Asia Cup from Pakistan is not being taken lightly and could cause a massive split in world cricket, including Pakistan boycotting the World Cup in India. If the tournament actually is moved, the Pakistan Cricket Board may go as far as quitting the ACC entirely. Shah, who is also the head of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), unilaterally claimed that the ACC would move the tournament away from Pakistan because India does not want to play in Pakistan. It is worth noting that Shah’s comments were made during a speech in his BCCI role. Somewhat confoundingly, he also claimed that the decision not to play in Pakistan was imposed by the Indian government, therefore the ACC was moving the tournament instead of telling India to just pull out, as is normally the case when one country refuses to participate in an international competition. But while far less prestigious than the World Cup, the Asia Cup still has some honour — and income potential — attached to it. Shah, an unqualified political plant, appears to know that this would be a step too far.
Shah had no qualifications to be part of the senior management of anything but was given top positions in cricket boards at the behest of his father, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah, who is also credited with being the brains behind the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Jay Shah owes everything to his father and Modi, and nothing to the sport of cricket. His business income went up 1.5 million per cent — and that’s not a typo — within the first couple of years of Modi’s premiership on the back Government contracts and massive funding from several people that later ‘curiously’ got prominent government contracts or even ministries. Even his rise to ACC chief had nothing to do with competence and everything to do with the financial clout of the BCCI. For these very reasons, the Asia Cup threat has nothing to do with security or cricket, but only the political needs of the Modi government.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 21st, 2022.
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