No opening ceremony for IPL 2019; Govt to be consulted on boycott of World Cup match against Pakistan

At the end of the CoA’s meeting in Delhi on Friday, no decision was taken on boycotting Pakistan’s clash in the upcoming World Cup. Two other key points have come out of the CoA meeting which was held in Delhi on Friday. One, BCCI has written a letter to ICC highlighting their concern over the security of the players. Two, there will be no IPL opening ceremony this year and the fund allocated for the same will be given to the families of the 40 CRPF personnel who lost their lives in the Pulwama terror attack. In the letter, CoA has also written that ICC should sever ties with nations which support terrorism. CoA chief Vinod Rai said, “We have two main concerns on security. We have conveyed concerns to ICC in the mail. Decision taken by all three members. Security of players should be appropriately taken care of. In future we must severe ties with such nations that support terrorism.” “We wont have a regular IPL opening ceremony. Amount will be given to families of CRPF victims.” Rai further said that CoA will consult the central government on the decision of playing Pakistan in the World Cup 2019. “The 16th of June is very far away. We will take a call on that much later and in consultation with the government,” CoA chief Vinod Rai said after the meeting. The dastardly attack on the CRPF convoy in Pulwama district, South Kashmir — in which more than 40 personnel were killed — has further deepened the divide between India and Pakistan. The attack has been condemned widely across India, from politicians, actors, cricketers to a large number of social media users, especially on microblogging website Twitter. While Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned the incident on the following day and gave the army a “ free hand ” to bring the perpetrators to justice, his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan said that any form of Indian aggression would be met with retaliation from his country . Khan added that Pakistan would willingly co-operate in the investigations if they received “actionable intelligence”.Meanwhile, a number of cricketers — both former and present — have called for the Indian team to boycott the Pakistan fixture(s) in the 2019 World Cup, including former cricketers Sourav Ganguly and Harbhajan Singh, both of whom were part of the historic 2004 tour of Pakistan. India face Pakistan at Manchester’s Old Trafford on 16 June, a match that the ICC views as a revenue jackpot. Earlier on Thursday, the CoA had drafted a letter directed to ICC chairman Shashank Manohar, seeking a complete ban on Pakistan from the upcoming edition of the tournament. With inputs from PTI