A plethora of questions was asked when none of the Australian cricketers were named in any of the three for the Women’s T20 Challenge on April 25. However, it has been understood that the Cricket Australia (CA) barred its players to build pressure on the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to postpone an ODI series between the men’s team in 2020. However, CA now wants to talk it out with the BCCI during the IPL final in Hyderabad.
Speaking to IANS, a BCCI official has explained that officials from Cricket South Africa (CSA) and CA will present during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2019 final and there was no reason not to engage in talks if the Australian board wants to clear the issue.
The official elaborated, “As far as I am aware, officials from these two boards will be there and if the situation does demand and if the moment is opportune, there is no reason why BCCI executives will not have a word with Cricket Australia officials if they want to talk about the matter.”
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Interestingly, CA’s attempt to pressurize the BCCI by not releasing the players like Ellyse Perry, Alyssa Healy and Meg Lanning failed miserably as the BCCI went ahead with naming the three squads Supernovas, Trailblazers and Velocity without the Australian players. In fact, when asked during the CoA meeting in the capital on April 27, chief Vinod Rai clarified that there was no going back on the selection of the squads.
The issue started after the BCCI wanted CA to play a men’s ODI series in India in January 2020. The proposal didn’t go well for the Australian broadcasters as that would mean there would be no ODIs in Australia’s home season. However, the BCCI officials believed that stopping women players from playing in the T20 challenge was no way to react to the issue with regards to men’s cricket.
One of the CA officials, Belinda Clark’s mail to the IPL operations team in the whole matter made it even more obvious that the reason to not release the women players was the result of the ongoing issue over the proposed ODI series in January next year.
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Clarke wrote, “We will be in a position to consider the request when the current issue regarding the men’s ODI series that was agreed upon in the FTP (future tour programme) for late January 2020 is resolved by Rahul (BCCI CEO Rahul Johri) and Kevin (CA CEO Kevin Roberts). I understand that this is being worked through at present.”
