SATIRE: World T20 declared a warm-up tournament by BCCI

In light of India’s crashing out of the ICC World T20, the BCCI has taken an astonishing step in declaring the tournament to be nothing more than a warmup game for the Champions League T20 to be held in a couple of weeks time.

In a press release, the BCCI said, “We here at the BCCI are glad that the Indian players have gotten a bit of match practice under their belts. This will be most useful for the upcoming Champions Trophy. It was great to see the likes of Balaji and Rohit Sharma getting a run out onto the field. In addition, Bhajji’s comeback was a welcome sign.

“Lately, we had been getting complaints from team owners about the distinct lack of preparation that the players had for the upcoming tournament. They brought to our notice the prestigious nature of the tournament and we could simply not ignore their call. The owners of a certain team, I will not tell you that it is based in Mumbai, were especially displeased with the distinct lack of playing time that their skipper was getting in the Indian squad and hence requested that this wrong be righted. The BCCI is always one that stands for equality and fairness and hence we decided to take the request seriously. It can now be safely said that the waters are still once more.

“Likewise, we did get certain complaints with regards the players from another team based in Kolkata that we cannot name that a certain fast bowler was injured for the latter part of the IPL and hence could not really get too much game time. In accordance, we have made sure that he got some game time as well. Clearly it can be seen that the BCCI has displayed a great deal of tact and zeal in allaying the fear of all the stakeholders. The BCCI is proud of the achievement.

“In addition, the BCCI would also like to confirm that all bridges that were broken between India and Sri Lanka has now been mended. We, of course, talk of all bridges other than the Sethu Samudram project. That is a political issue and the BCCI being a fair and neutral body does not get involved in political issues. We are referring to the tensions that arose between the BCCI and the BCCSL with regards the participation of the Indian players in the Sri Lankan Premier League. In compensation for that, the BCCI had promised to send a team for the World T20 despite a huge tournament, the CL T20 coming up, and this being a mere warm up.

“No one can now doubt the benevolence of the BCCI. I hope that this gesture of good faith has reaffirmed to the cricket world that the BCCI is not holding the International Cricket Council to ransom, as is suggested in a few quarters.

“To conclude, we would like to congratulate Team India for winning the only officially recognized match of the tour, the Super Eights game against Pakistan. The team performed remarkably well and we will suitably reward the team for maintaining a 100% win record in the tour.”

The Indian team was unavailable for comment.

DISCLAIMER – This is a satire, and should not be taken in any seriousness.