The International Cricket Council (ICC) has exposed that it ‘habitually fixes’ the draws for global tournaments in order to put the South East Asia’s two most enraged arch rival India and Sri Lanka in the same group for the 2017 Champions Trophy in England. ICC media revealed the sensational news at the Oval on Wednesday.
The Champions Trophy will be the third tournament after World Cup and World T20 where both India and Pakistan pitted in the same group and on occasions India defeat Pakistan by a huge margin.
The defending champions India will commence their title defense against their arch rivals at Edgbaston on June 4, 2017.
ICC knows well that an India versus Pakistan match draws huge fan following across the subcontinental borders and around the world. So that brim the coffer of ICC with revenue of millions of viewership and advertisement.
“No doubt we want to try to put India versus Pakistan in our event,” said ICC chief executive Dave Richardson was quoted by Telegraph of England.
It is hugely important from an ICC point of view. It is massive around the world and the fans have come to expect it as well. It is fantastic for the tournament because it gives a massive kick, Richardson reportedly said.
However, Richardson denied that this had a negative impact on the integrity or fairness of the tournament.
“What we try and do is make sure that when you add up the rankings of the different groups, they all add up to the same number of points. You can do that in a number of ways. So long as the pools are balanced, it’s silly to avoid [the fixture] when you can fairly cater for it,” he added.