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Former India pacer S Sreesanth has reacted to Mickey Arthur’s statement after the India-Pakistan 2023 World Cup when he said that the game looked more like a BCCI event than an ICC one. Sreesanth commented that Arthur should be shown the Bollywood movie “83” so that he understands the history and toil behind the Indian cricket board’s rise to the top.
India beat Pakistan by seven wickets in match number 12 of the 2023 ODI World Cup at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on October 14. Batting first, Pakistan collapsed from 155/2 to 191 all out. The Men in Blue then chased down the target in 30.3 overs as captain Rohit Sharma struck 86 off 63 balls.
Speaking at the game, Pakistan Team Director Arthur questioned the absence of Pakistan fans at the marquee match and made the statement regarding the game looking like a BCCI event.
Responding to Arthur’s observation, Sreesanth told Sportskeeda:
“Wherever India plays, it never seems like an ICC event is going on. It will always seem like a BCCI event. We should show him [Arthur] the movie 83 with subtitles. Then he can understand where BCCI was and where it is now. The journey is very important. It’s a motivational and inspirational story."
“BCCI has risen to the top on its own with much difficulty . The administrators and players are very good now. Even if our C team plays in the World Cup, it would be a brilliant team. What will the ICC say? All the revenues and everything… Would Mickey Arthur have said the same thing if the World Cup was being held in England? Even when I played in Durban for two years, I felt I was in India,” the former India pacer added.
Pakistan fans could not attend the much-hyped 2023 World Cup match in Ahmedabad due to visa delay issues. According to media reports, only a handful of Pakistani journalists could attend the game.
“There's always criticisms from various quarters” - ICC reacts to Arthur’s statement
Reacting to Arthur’s statement, the ICC downplayed the controversy and stated that every event has its share of criticism.
Speaking on the sidelines of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) session in Mumbai, ICC chairman Greg Barclay was quoted as saying by AFP:
"Every event that we have, there's always criticisms from various quarters. Things that perhaps we'll take away and try to work on, try to do better… so this event's only [at] the start. Let's see how the whole thing plays out and we'll go away and we'll review what could change, what we can do better, how we can improve World Cups and the general offering around cricket."
"We will just take it as it plays out, get to the end of the event. I'm satisfied that it will still be an outstanding World Cup," he concluded.
India are currently first in the 2023 World Cup points table with three wins from three games. Pakistan are fourth with two wins and a loss.
