The Proteas took on the Black Caps yesterday evening in a semifinal of the International Cricket Council (ICC) Champions Trophy tournament played in Lahore, Pakistan. At the time of writing the game was still in progress so the outcome was not known, though New Zealand, batting first, had set a challenging target of 362 for six in their 50 overs.
As much as this newspaper hopes we eventually prevailed, that is beside the point of this editorial, which concerns the undue influence India has over the ICC, and how this is playing out.
This tournament is ostensibly being hosted by Pakistan, but India indicated three months ago that for political reasons its team would not play on Pakistani soil. Instead of replacing India with another national team the ICC — chaired by India’s Jay Shah, formerly secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India — tied itself in knots to keep the Indian team in the competition.
India has been allowed to play all its games in Dubai, which meant when Australia and the Proteas qualified for the semifinals both teams had to fly to Dubai to be in place in case they had to play India. When it turned out to be Australia, which subsequently lost to India, the South Africans had to fly straight back to Lahore to take on New Zealand.
That is simply outrageous. If India ends up winning this tournament the result should be marked with an asterisk indicating that it is nothing to be proud of.
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