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Mumbai: The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Friday summarily rejected Cricket Association of Bengal's (CAB's) plea to give them time till February 7 to make the Eden Gardens 'match-fit' to host India's World Cup match against England on February 27.
ICC CEO Haroon Lorgat, in an email has conveyed to BCCI president Shashank Manohar that the world body was turning down CAB's request because their experts were of the view that the unfinished renovation work at the Eden Gardens cannot be completed by February 7. Lorgat also made it clear that the ICC is worried about the logistics of moving the game to another venue.
Eden Gardens' chances of hosting the remaining three non-India matches now rest on a further inspection by the ICC's venue-inspection team which is scheduled to visit the venue on Monday.
The latest rejection is the ultimate humiliation for CAB bosses, who had us believe that they were turning the Eden Gardens into a veritable paradise. ICC's firm 'no' may have shocked them, but the fact remains that CAB's appeal lacked both merit as well as substance.
In the end, it was a rather simple decision for the ICC. Twice their inspectors had been led up the garden path by arrogant and over-confident CAB officials, who have now brought disrepute to one of the most-loved cricket venues in the world.
After having pulled the plug on Eden Gardens on Thursday, doing a flip-flop would have been a big embarrassment to the ICC. After all, what the CAB authorities couldn't complete in over two years, how could they accomplish in 10 days? And what if the ICC had granted them another extension and the CAB still failed to deliver the deliverables, some of which have been hotly disputed by the hosting association?
