PCB Chief Ehsan Mani confirms postponement of Asia Cup 2020

Ehsan Mani, the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), has confirmed that the Asia Cup scheduled in September this year has been postponed. Interestingly, his statement comes after the BCCI President Sourav Ganguly confirmed on Wednesday that the tournament has been cancelled. Moreover, the PCB’s media director had also said that the final decision is yet to be made and that Ganguly’s statement don’t hold any merit.

Pakistan had the hosting rights of the Asia Cup this year but with the pandemic wreaking havoc across the world, there was a question mark on it going ahead. The PCB was in talks with Sri Lanka and the UAE to host the competition but the BCCI had stated that there was no point in playing the Asia Cup if the T20 World Cup is postponed.

Rather the PCB and BCCI were having a go at each other with the latter board willing to organise the Indian Premier League (IPL). With COVID-19 situation not improving in Asia any time soon, Ehsan Mani confirmed that the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) is looking to organise it in 2021.

“The Asian Cricket Council is looking at organising it next year. It is too dangerous to host it this year We had swapped the event with Sri Lanka this year because it is one of the least affected (in South Asia) from the virus,” he was quoted as saying by Times Now.

Decision taken keeping players’ safety in mind, says Ehsan Mani

Mani also cleared that the decision to postpone the Asia Cup has been taken only for the players’ safety and there is no any political motive behind it. “We were originally going to host it but when I looked at the COVID situation in UAE and Pakistan and other South Asia countries, the only country which was ahead of the cycle was Sri Lanka and most likely to conduct the event.

“So Sri Lanka Cricket and PCB discussed it, we put the swap proposal to the ACC and it was approved by the board. There was no politics, it was just for sake of preserving cricket and nothing else,” Ehsan Mani further added.