Former England cricketer and noted commentator David Llyod came down heavily on the ICC for pre-determining India vs Pakistan matches in the league stages in the recent ICC tournaments, calling it a form of fixing.
“We talk long and hard about fixing in cricket, that’s fixed [pre-determining IND vs PAK fixtures]. That’s just fixed for a major event,” Lloyd said on the TalkSports Podcast when asked about the recurring India vs Pakistan fixtures in ICC tournaments.
“I think that the romance of anything like this if they do get drawn together, not that they are, that’s it. If they do, there’s a romance to it. There’s something for spectators to look forward to. If it happens and then it becomes an event, you know the game itself is an event. You can’t fix it.
The 77-year-old also eluded to ‘a lot of other stuff’ that was fixed in the ongoing T20 World Cup, terming it as ‘manipulation’. His reference could very well be towards India, who played all their league games in a single venue and all their matches have been at a fixed time (8:00 PM IST) while all other teams have had to travel between games and shuttle between day games and night games.
India were also drawn to play the second semi-final on Guyana if they made it thus far in the competition – which they have – irrespective of where they finished in their Group in the super 8 Stages. The move was made to hand India the second semi-final keeping in mind the Indian audience.
The second semi-final in Guyana is the morning game in the Caribbean which will mean a primetime 8:00 PM time slot for the Indian sub-continent. The first semi-final will be played at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy, Tarouba, Trinidad and Tobago on June 26 night, which will be 6:00 AM IST.
The criticism here from various quarters was the fact that India got the advantage of knowing the venue where they will be playing the semi-final, which is not the case for the other teams.
“And that’s, that’s only part of what we fix. We fixed lots of stuff in this particular World Cup, to try to make things and manipulate. It’s just wrong,” said Llyod.
