Bismah Maroof dissapointed with ICC
Image : Collected
|| CF Correspondent ||
Pakistan women’s skipper Bismah Maroof is disappointed over the International Cricket Council's (ICC) decision of to share the equal points with their arch-rivals India after both the teams were unable to play their ICC Women’s ODI Championship matches due to their ongoing political problems.
During a media conference held by the Pakistan Cricket Board [PCB] on Tuesday, 28 April, Bismah told that her team was hoping that the PCBs legal team would take the matter to ICC’s dispute resolution committee.
"The decision really was disappointing. Because we'd been waiting for a long time to play India and I'm sure our board was working on it. But I remember we weren't able to get a response. It was quite disappointing," Bismah Mahroof said.
The ongoing political tightness between the two nations have put their bilateral series on hold indefinitely. India and Pakistan were supposed to face each other in the sixth of the seven rounds of the ICC Women's ODI Championship 2017-20, those points will be counted towards the direct qualification for the 2021 World Cup.
In consequence with the three additional points, India (23) pipped Pakistan (19) in the direct qualification race at the last minute, joining Australia, England, South Africa and hosts New Zealand for the tournament. Pakistan will now have to fight their way to the World Cup qualifiers, scheduled for July in Sri Lanka which is now pending for confirmation due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The skipper also said that it is an absolute disappointment of not playing the matches as knowing how much hype the two nations fight in the cricket ground creates, while putting away the political tensions out of sports.
"The India-Pakistan matches are always quite hyped and the audience has missed the exciting cricket these contests provide. We've always shown willingness to play against India and Pakistan has always kept politics away from sport. It was disappointing that we did not get those matches, because those are really competitive matches. And we were on No. 4 [No. 5] in the Championship table. If we would have played and then not made it [automatically], then it would have perhaps been easier for us to accept as cricketers and as a team," she added.
Maroof is currently recovering from a thumb fracture which ruled her out of the 2020 Twenty20 World Cup in Australia earlier this year, however, put a positive spin on the situation at hand.
"Good luck to India; they've got these points without playing any competitive matches. Talking about our team, I'd like to put a positive spin on it as we will get more number of games [at the World Cup Qualifiers]. We don't normally get so many, so this [Qualifiers] will give us a chance to play more competitive cricket together as a team," Maroof concluded.
