India Forfeits Three Matches Against Pakistan And Misses Out On World Cup Qualification

Indian Women’s Cricket Team

The Indian Women’s Cricket Team had forfeited three scheduled international one-day matches against Pakistan in the Round 6 of the ICC Women’s Championship in August 2016. This obviously did not go down well with the International Cricket Council (ICC). They have now stripped India of their six points against Pakistan.

Keeping in mind the current political scenario between the two nuclear South Asian rivals, cricketing ties are currently impeded, and the men’s team too did not play a bilateral series since Pakistan toured India at the end of 2012. Although they have played in various other tournaments like the 50-over World Cup, World T20, Champions Trophy and Asia Cup.

“This is a move with ulterior motive trying to play into the hands of Pakistan. They would say if women can play so can men. But that won’t happen. If ICC does not backtrack, the men’s team in solidarity with our women’s team won’t play in Champions Trophy,” a senior Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) official told The Hindustan Times.

The Technical Committee of the ICC comprising of Geoff Allardice, ICC General Manager – Cricket, Andy Hobbs, ICC acting Head of Global Development and Iain Higgins, ICC Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel affirmed through a media release that both, the BCCI and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) have given written statements in this regard.

According to the OneIndia report ICC said on Wednesday, “Following consideration of written submissions from both the PCB and the BCCI, the ICC Technical Committee has ruled that the India Women’s team is deemed to have forfeited each of the three matches it was due to play against Pakistan in Round 6 of the ICC Women’s Championship, and that the associated points should be awarded to Pakistan.”

They further added, “The Technical Committee was sensitive to the current state of relations between the nations of India and Pakistan, but concluded that the BCCI had not been able to establish ‘acceptable reasons’ for not participating in this series.”

The matches which were supposed to be played between 1st August 2016 and 31st October 2016 were not conventionally scheduled and eventually did not take place. So the governing body awarded Pakistan two points for each of the three unplayed matches i.e. India shall be considered to have scored 0 runs in each of the 50 overs, in each of the three unplayed matches.

Though this decision will not affect the current standings on the ICC Women’s Championship Points Table and India and Pakistan still stand at fifth and seventh positions respectively, Team India did miss out on the automatic qualification for the 2017 Women’s Cricket World Cup in England.

On another note Australia, England, New Zealand and West Indies have automatically qualified for the World Cup whereas India, Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka will join Bangladesh, Ireland, Zimbabwe, Scotland, Thailand and Papua New Guinea in the Women’s World Cup Qualifier to be played in Sri Lanka from 7th to 21st February 2017. From there, the top four placed teams will progress to the Women’s World Cup. Mithali Raj is likely to lead Team India during the qualifiers.