BCCI unlikely to send a cricket team to South Asian Games

BCCI unlikely to send a cricket team to South Asian Games: A South Asian Olympic association meeting is to be held in Delhi on Wednesday to discuss about plans for this year’s sports event. Cricket has grown to become the most popular sport among the Asian countries. And the sports ministry would be desperate to include cricket in the multi sport extravaganza. But the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) doesn’t seem to go along with the sports ministry as they didn’t send cricket team for last year’s tournament.

This year the event is to be held in held in Guwahati and Shillong in December. And the sports minister Sarbananda Sonowal is keen to use this as an opportunity to improve the cricket infrastructure in the part of the country.

BCCI has hinted that they are in no plans to send an Indian cricket squad to the SAG this year too. Busy schedule has been the reason for BCCI’s decision to withdraw from the competition. A BCCI representative was quoted saying, “It is unlikely we will send a team for the South Asian Games. They did not mention if we have to send a senior team or age-group side. We have a packed schedule during that period so it’s tough,”

India has been dominant in cricket over the past decade or so, and their absence would be a great blow to the SAG. This might leave the committee with no options but to drop cricket from the list of sports as an IOA official reportedly said, “The ministry was keen as cricket is the most popular sport in South Asia and the level of competition would be high. They were of the opinion that its inclusion would popularize the Games. However, we had informed that if the BCCI does not agree to send a team, then we won’t include cricket in the list of sports,”

Cricket was included in last year’s South Asian Games as teams from several countries battled out in the T20 format. Bangladesh defeated Sri Lanka to win the trophy yesteryear in which the Indian team didn’t take part.