The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Tuesday cancelled the pre-match press conference of the Pakistan-United Arab Emirates (UAE) men\u2019s Asia Cup match as the crisis from the fallout of the Pakistan-India match worsened.<\/p>\n
The PCB had lodged a complaint with the International Cricket Council (ICC) against match referee Andy Pycroft over his alleged violations of rules pertaining to the \u201cSpirit of Cricket\u201c, with the board claiming that the referee had asked the Pakistan and India captains \u201cnot to shake hands at the time of the toss\u201d for last Sunday\u2019s match.<\/p>\n
\u201cPakistan will not be holding their pre-match press conference today,\u201d the Asian Cricket Council confirmed in a statement on Tuesday ahead of Pakistan\u2019s match against the UAE tomorrow.<\/p>\n
The PCB confirmed in a statement later in the day that the board had still not taken a final decision on continuing participation in the Asia Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Pakistan Cricket Board has not yet taken any final decision regarding the Asia Cup, \u201cPCB spokesperson Amir Mir said in a statement.<\/p>\n
He added that consultations are underway in this regard, and a final decision will be taken by tomorrow (Wednesday).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision will be taken keeping in mind the interests of Pakistan,\u201d Mir said.<\/p>\n
Officials of both the PCB and the UAE Cricket Board confirmed earlier to Dawn.com that the press conference had been cancelled.<\/p>\n
Pakistan men\u2019s team media manager Syed Naeem Ahmed had confirmed to Dawn.com separately that the team would still hold their practice session today.<\/p>\n
Indian media outlets claimed earlier in the day, citing \u201cunnamed sources\u201d, that the ICC had dismissed the PCB\u2019s complaint seeking the removal of match referee Pycroft from the ongoing Asia Cup over the official\u2019s conduct violation in Pakistan\u2019s match against India.<\/p>\n
However, Indian cricket news outlet Cricbuzz reported, \u201cWhen contacted, the PCB has denied receiving any communication from the ICC.\u201d<\/p>\n
The PCB is yet to issue an official statement on the alleged development.<\/p>\n
Pakistan team manager Naveed Akram Cheema had flagged his concerns with the match referee and the tournament director Andy Russel about the Indian team\u2019s behaviour, Pyroft\u2019s own actions at the toss, and the umpires\u2019 role in allowing the Indians to walk off the field without the handshake after the match.<\/p>\n
A PCB source, requesting anonymity, told Dawn.com on Monday that Cheema had also approached tournament director Andy Russel with his concerns, upon which he was informed that the match referee had been acting at the behest of the BCCI.<\/p>\n
This compelled the PCB to write to the ICC for the withdrawal of Pycroft from the match officials\u2019 roster for the ongoing Asia Cup.<\/p>\n
The PCB official had said that the board is contemplating the withdrawal of Pakistan teams from the Asia Cup if Pycroft continues to officiate the Asia Cup matches. And, the PCB seems prepared for the extreme measure, as Naqvi tweeted on Monday: \u201cThere is nothing more important to me than the honour and prestige of my country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pycroft is one of the two match referees \u2014 the other being Richie Richardson \u2014 that the ICC has nominated for this tournament. He is slated to officiate Pakistan\u2019s next game on Wednesday, against the UAE. Pyrcoft had also officiated Pakistan\u2019s first game of the tournament against Oman.<\/p>\n
Pakistan were expected to beat the home side in Dubai tomorrow, and they would have faced neighbours India again on Sunday in the Super 4 round of the Asia Cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Tuesday cancelled the pre-match press conference of the Pakistan-United Arab Emirates (UAE) men\u2019s Asia Cup match as the crisis from the fallout of the Pakistan-India match worsened. The PCB had lodged a complaint with the International Cricket Council (ICC) against match referee Andy Pycroft over his alleged violations of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12002,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12003,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12001\/revisions\/12003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}