Vaughan says event 'set up for India', pleads for ICC to be fairer
GEORGETOWN: The wait kept getting longer. The world's eyes were on the weather radar and as the clouds seemed to keep moving away, the smiles were back on the faces of the fans who have been trooping into Guyana from across the United States and other parts of the world. The toss got delayed, the super-soppers were on, but nothing mattered more than the hot sun that was burning in full glory after morning showers.
But as the teams got on to the field and started to prepare themselves for a long day, quite a few questions about how the tournament has been scheduled surfaced.
To start with, there is no reserve day between games in the knock-out stage, which is beyond belief for anybody who is associated with cricket in this part of the world. To compensate for that, the rule of the tournament was amended at the 11th hour, with two days to go for the match, allowing four hours of extra time.
Pakistan, who had been knocked out in Lauderdale because their game could not be started despite a hot sun blazing through the day, are justified to ask a few questions after rules got amended before the semis.
While that's one issue, the fact that India knew way before the World Cup started that their
semifinal
would be played in Guyana has also come up for discussion. India captain
Rohit Sharma
tried to shut it down saying that "it's the same for all teams" and that "England have enough experience of playing in these conditions", the theory that India got a bit of unfair advantage cannot be disputed.
Former England captain
Michael Vaughan
didn't mince his words when he said that the
T20 World Cup
is "purely set up for India" and ICC should have been a bit more "fairer" to other countries because this is not a bilateral event.
"Well, it's their tournament isn't it? Literally it's that. You know that. They get to play whenever they want, they know where their semifinal is, they play every single game in the morning so people can watch them at night, obviously in India on TV," Vaughan said during a podcast with Australian great
Adam Gilchrist
on the YouTube channel Club Prairie Fire.
The Ashes-winning captain feels it is purely the financial might of
Indian cricket
that has led to such a situation. "I get that money is a big play, and I get that in bilateral series but when you get to a World Cup, the ICC should be a little bit fairer to everybody. There can't be sympathy or any kind of sway towards one team and this tournament is purely set up for India," Vaughan said.
English (US) ·