Olympic Council of Asia secretary general Randhir Singh on Tuesday lashed out at the Board of Control for Cricket in India for its decision not to send Indian teams to the Asian Games in China.
“I’m very, very disappointed because we were really keen to have cricket in multi-discipline events,” Randhir said on Tuesday. “The Asian Cricket Council worked really hard to get cricket included in the Asian Games but BCCI’s decision is very disappointing,” said the OCA top official, who is also the Indian Olympic Association secretary general.
The board cited international commitments and announced that neither the men’s nor the women’s team would go to Guangzhou which hosts the Asian Games from November 12-27.
BCCI has always been reluctant to send teams to multi-discipline events and they sent a second-string squad to the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. “This is not the first time that the BCCI has backed out from a multi-discipline event,” Randhir said.
Organisers of the Commonwealth Games were also keen to have Twenty20 cricket but the BCCI wasn’t.
The board insisted that it did not want to promote Twenty20 cricket, while CWG organising committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi said the format could be changed but the board needed to make up their mind if they really wanted cricket in the Games. — PTI