Big cities cricket fans will be deprived of watching ICC World T20 2016 cricket matches seating in the stand as half of the matches have been allotted to Nagpur and low capacity stadium of Dharamsala.
Under the regime of Shashank Manohar BCCI has been allotted nine matches to Nagpur and eight matches to Dharamsala which have raised eyebrows. These two venues will together host 17 out of 35 games in the tournament.
Both Nagpur and Dharamshala belong to the board president and secretary.
Nagpur which is the home ground of Vidarbha Cricket Association headed by BCCI president Shashank Manohar will host nine games while Dharamshala the home ground Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association headed by BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur will stage eight matches.
Five other venues will host the other half of the tournament. Chandigarh, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Delhi are all traditional Test venues will host a total of 18 matches, including the final at Eden Gardens.
India currently has 20 international cricket stadiums, of which 15 are certified Test venues. However, the BCCI decided to host the World T20 only on seven venues.
The India-Pakistan match has been awarded to Dharamshala, which has 23,000 capacity when some other venues across India which were ignored boast capacities ranging from 30,000 to 55,000.
Pakistan are not allowed in Maharashtra as the state government asked BCCI that they can not guarantee security to the Pakistan team. But, outside Maharashtra, there are stadiums like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Vishaka Pattanam and Rajkot. Any of them could host the match.
A BCCI source, “It is not even in rotation that Dharamshala has been awarded the game,” a senior board functionary said, adding: “If you had a choice between 23,000 people watching India play Pakistan and 40,000 or 50,000 people watching, which option would you choose?”
G Gangaraju, the BCCI vice-president from South Zone and also the chairman of the board’s tour programme and fixture committee, when was asked about this refused to say anything on this.
“I’ll have to look into it and get back to you. I’m in Parliament right now,” Gangaraju told TOI.
Last month, BCCI had given Test status to six new venues. Of those only Dharamshala has been awarded eight World T20 games while the remaining five Pue, Rajkot, Indore, Ranchi and Visakhapatnam-have been ignored altogether.
Chennai has become an all-weather cricket venue for India as N Srinivasan was the board president. But, the venue has also been snubbed by BCCI. Chennai will host only four women’s world T20 games.
National daily Times of India when contacted officials from the grounds and pitches committee to ascertain if there were particular reasons why so many possible venues were ignored. “No that I know of,” a senior committee member said. Two state association presidents also fumed as their venues recently given the Test status but ignored from World T20.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) will pay the BCCI Rs 55.2 crore to host the entire men’s World T20, which works out to Rs 1.6 crore per match for 35 matches. It was learnt that the BCCI will pay the hosting association will get Rs 2-3 crore per match. Dharamsala with a minimum seating capacity will host eight matches will earn Rs 8 crore from the board.
Surprisingly, none of the BCCI mandarins has come up with a satisfactory explanation to justify the reason behind venue allotments.