South Africa are yet again to host an ICC event. This time its champions trophy. Alright they are very good hosts and Indians are very lucky there. They won the world T20 there and almost won the WC 2003. Going by the signs of the history and the form, they should back themselves to win the CT 09 too. But my point of contention is why does ICC not have to look beyond South Africa and Sri Lanka for the venues to host the CT ? Why not Australia ? They have the best cricket grounds and the best cricketing commentary. And I presume there would be no intrusion of non-cricketing elements in Australia. The fun and frolic that you get to see in MCG, SCG, Gabba and Waca is unmatched. Add to that the commentary from Bill Lawry, Ian Chappell, Ian Healy and of course Tony Greg.
I mean why it has to be SA every time. Or why a SL ? England is already hosting the World T20 for this year. I also read somewhere that West Indies would be hosting the T20 for next year. Wasn’t it supposed to be a 2 year gap between 2 World T20s. Am I missing something here ?
And it seems that the IPL is not gonna be hosted in India this year thanks to the petty row between the ruling Congress government and the BCCI. What is Mr Sharad Pawar doing ? He is a minister in the same government and the powerful man (?) in BCCI. Plus there is Rajeev SHukla, who is BCCI VP and a Congress MP. What are they doing ? Are the doubts on IPL security being based really on the Parliamentary elections or is it just a fallout of the Lahore attack on SL ? Aint Indian government scaring off the foreign teams and players by making the security row a public affair? Doesn’t the PC (home minister) and his officials understand that they don’t have to do this? This is getting farcical day by day. Time for somebody to back off and pull the plug. Either take IPL to Pakistan or scrap it off totally. By scraping IPL, the govt would also rob the Indians of the only platform to go to defense of their world T20 title.
