Asia Cup: Pakistan stay on but Pycroft issue lingers as PCB sends second letter to ICC
Dubai (PTI): Pakistan may have withdrawn the threat to pull out of the Asia Cup but their objection to match referee Andy Pycroft still stands and the PCB has shot off another letter to the ICC demanding that the Zimbabwean be swapped with Richie Richardson for the team's remaining games.
It has been reliably learnt that late on Tuesday evening, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) sent another mail to the ICC reiterating the demand to remove Pycroft from all its games but as of now, it hasn't been obliged by the world body.
Pycroft is due to officiate Pakistan's must-win game against the UAE later this evening.
The controversy began after Indian players led by skipper Suryakumar Yadav refused to shake hands with the Pakistan team at the end of their match on Sunday. Pakistan skipper Salman Ali Agha didn't attend the post-match presentation ceremony in protest.
PCB blamed Pycroft for the fiasco, saying that he asked Salman not to shake hands with Suryakumar and also did not allow the exchange of team-sheets between the two skippers as is the norm.
Suryakumar, on his part, stated that the decision to avoid handshakes with the cross-border rivals was a gesture of solidarity towards the victims of the Pakistan-backed Pahalgam terror attack and the Indian Armed Forces which carried out Operation Sindoor in retaliation.
Pakistan, however, labelled Indian players' actions as "unsporting", while blaming Pycroft for acting in a partisan manner. The accusations were followed by a pullout threat and a formal demand to have Pycroft removed by the ICC, which rejected the plea.
Pakistan stand to lose close to USD 16 million if they act on the threat and it would also be very poor optics for the country's cricket board which is headed by the current chair of the Asian Cricket Council, Mohsin Naqvi.
In its initial letter to the ICC, PCB had stated: "The match referee failed to discharge his responsibility: to ensure that respect was extended and maintained amongst the captains as well as between the two competing sides; and to create a positive atmosphere by his conduct and encourage the captains and participating teams to do likewise.
"In fact, the match referee's instructions to the two team captains were entirely directed towards achieving the opposite result. This misconduct violates Article 2 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Match Officials, which specifically makes it an offence for the Match Referee to conduct himself in a manner, which is contrary to the spirit of game and violates the MCC Laws."
"Given the gravity, political nature/background, and far-reaching consequences and repercussions, the misconduct has also caused disrepute to the game."
As per article 2.1.1 of ICC's Code of Conduct, "spirit of the game may be defined by reference to the Preamble to the Laws of Cricket and involves respect for, amongst others (a) the role of the umpires and (b) the game and its traditional values."
However, handshakes between rival players is a mere convention and not prescribed under any laws of the game.
Pakistan's leading daily, 'Dawn' has quoted a PCB source as saying that Pakistan team director Naveed Akram Cheema had been told that Pycroft was acting at the behest of BCCI.
"A Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) source, requesting anonymity, told Dawn.com on Monday that Cheema had also approached tournament director Andy Russell with his concerns, upon which he was informed that the match referee had been acting at the behest of the BCCI," the report stated.
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A 99-run loss is unacceptable: Hayden blames batting horror
Ahmedabad (PTI): Gujarat Titans' batting coach Matthew Hayden was scathing about their 99-run defeat to Mumbai Indians, blaming a "horror" batting display and poor death bowling for the heavy loss in the IPL.
From being 44/3 in 5.5 overs, MI hammered 73 runs in the last four overs to post a challenging 199/5 here on Monday. In reply, GT were bundled out for 100.
"I expect our margins to be a lot smaller than 100 (99). That is an unacceptable scorecard for our batting unit," the legendary Australian opener told media in the post-match interaction.
"It was just a horrible day for us today. Truth be told, there was nothing good about this day, really, apart from Rabada's performance with the ball. so we've got some work to do, definitely."
GT boast a strong batting line-up in Sai Sudharsan (759 runs), Shubman Gill (717), and Jos Buttler (538). They have also added New Zealand’s explosive Glenn Phillips in the middle order alongside Shahrukh Khan and Rahul Tewatia.
"When you look down at our batting line-up, we've got wonderful players that have to be in a better mindset and better position to take their opportunities. That is our expectations and has been since the conception of this Gujarat Titans franchise...
"So you can't be sitting here and being happy about, a 100-run (99) margin game in a 20-over game. I mean, back in my day, 100 runs was almost a winning total in 50-over cricket!"
The 54-year-old said GT lost the game in the powerplay.
"Well, middle order was undoubtedly exposed today. When they're coming in with six overs, you know that you're in deep trouble. The thing about the power plays is that you can't win it from there, especially in a run chase, but you can definitely lose it, and we lost it in the power play," he said.
Shahrukh (35 off 25 balls) and Tewatia (49 off 42) have not fared well this season and Hayden feels the duo along with Phillips (67 off 54 balls) have been struggling because the top order has been below its best.
"The relevance behind balls faced when you look at, for example, someone like Glenn Phillips -- his record in T20 cricket is an impressive strike rate and you'll take that all day long in the majority of games," Hayden said.
"However, you need an upfront batting effort where you consistently taking the lion's share of the batting. We shouldn't be allowing, Tiwu (Tewatia) or Shahrukh or these guys lots of balls. That's not their role. That's not what they train for."
Hayden said GT has an aggressive and adaptable unit but their execution fell apart on the day.
"We are a very good thinking batting unit. We're not a conservative batting unit. You don't go out and get 200s as often as we do being conservative. But they're an adaptive batting unit. ...they've got their roles and they play them and today they simply didn't.
"So the worry isn't just today about the middle order. It'd be unfair to say that, they were going to go on and score 13 runs an over because by that stage, I felt like as a batting coach, I was on the mast and the boat was sinking."
It was poorly executed bowling effort
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Hayden also pointed to poor execution in the death overs.
"I feel like one-dimensional is very unfair on a world-class bowling attack, but I will take on board it was a poorly executed bowling effort this evening.
"When you look back at those last four overs, that was just a 'horror story' -- 73 off the last four is unacceptable as world-class players. That bowling line-up has to reflect on that performance... It was purely an executional thing."
He added that GT were below par with the ball on a surface that didn’t fully justify the high total.
"We're very average with the ball, firstly, on a wicket that I really felt was probably a 175-type wicket.
"When you look historically at this black soil pitch on No. 5, it's a 200-wicket for the loss of five batters. That's been its winning first-inning score, and today it wasn't that wicket (199/5)... It was visible that it had cracks in it. It was visible that it was up and down.
"So credit also has to go to Tilak Varma, who put in a wonderful performance. It wasn't a cookie-cutter type performance. It was a dominant performance down the ground. He read the play nicely. He was able to pick up and play with power and precision."
Hayden said the chase was still within reach but poor shot selection proved costly.
"And when you reflect on our own batting, we had one side of the ground that was a little more inaccessible than the other, and we lost, what, three wickets into the bigger side of that boundary.
"And it wasn't an impossible total. 200 still is a total that I would back our three world-class players at the top of the order to etch into that a bit more and then allow our more sort of game players. An opportunity to set out their stalls and bat deep into the innings."
