The International Cricket Council (ICC) has taken strong exception to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) recording a meeting between match referee Andy Pycroft and Pakistan team officials ahead of their Asia Cup fixture against the UAE in Dubai on September 17, with the controversy stemming from the so-called \u201chandshake-gate\u201d incident involving India captain Suryakumar Yadav, the Press Trust of India news agency reported on Friday.<\/p>\n
According to the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency, ICC chief executive Sanjog Gupta wrote a \u2018strongly-worded email\u2019 to the PCB on Thursday, terming the use of a mobile phone to film the conversation inside the Players and Match Officials Area (PMOA) a breach of protocol.<\/p>\n
The meeting was attended by Pycroft, Pakistan captain Salman Ali Agha, head coach Mike Hesson, team manager Naveed Akram Cheema, media manager Naeem Gillani, and ICC general manager cricket Wasim Khan.<\/p>\n
Gillani was initially told by ICC officials that mobile phones were not permitted inside the PMOA under anti-corruption regulations.<\/p>\n
However, the PCB insisted that the meeting be recorded, even threatening that Pakistan would not take the field against the UAE unless their demand was met. A compromise was reached under which the session was filmed without audio.<\/p>\n
In his email, Gupta described the episode as \u201cmisconduct\u201d and said the PCB had committed \u201cmultiple violations\u201d of the PMOA code. He also objected to a PCB press release which had claimed Pycroft had \u201capologised\u201d to the Pakistan captain and manager.<\/p>\n
Gupta clarified that the referee had only expressed \u201cregret over the miscommunication\u201d that led to Suryakumar not shaking hands with Salman before the India-Pakistan clash.<\/p>\n
The controversy delayed the start of Pakistan\u2019s game against the UAE by nearly an hour, with the PCB initially instructing its players to remain at the hotel after learning Pycroft would officiate.<\/p>\n
The standoff was broken after the ICC agreed to the pre-match meeting between the referee anthe d Pakistan team management.<\/p>\n
The PCB had earlier demanded Pycroft\u2019s removal from the tournament, accusing him of violating the code of conduct and the MCC\u2019s spirit of cricket by instructing Salman not to shake hands with Suryakumar.<\/p>\n
The ICC, however, said Pycroft was only relaying a message from the Asian Cricket Council\u2019s venue manager and that an internal inquiry had cleared him of any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
Later on Friday, however, the PCB defended its decision to record the Dubai meeting, maintaining that its media manager had authorised access to the PMOA and acted within ICC protocols.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team\u2019s media manager is part of the squad and has authorised access to the PMOA. His presence there is not a violation,\u201d the PTI quoted \u201ca tournament source\u201d as saying. The board further argued that protocols allow media managers to use cameras inside the PMOA.<\/p>\n
However, PTI claimed the matter was flagged by the ICC referee to Pakistan\u2019s anti-corruption officer, who acknowledged the breach. Gupta, in his email, was categorical: \u201cThe ICC, in order to preserve the interest of the sport, the tournament and the stakeholders involved accepted PCB\u2019s request although this demonstrated a complete disregard for the sanctity of the PMOA.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has taken strong exception to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) recording a meeting between match referee Andy Pycroft and Pakistan team officials ahead of their Asia Cup fixture against the UAE in Dubai on September 17, with the controversy stemming from the so-called \u201chandshake-gate\u201d incident involving India captain Suryakumar Yadav, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12085","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\/12085","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=12085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12087,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12085\/revisions\/12087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}