Sharda Ugra, who is widely considered India’s foremost sports journalist, says the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s ego is responsible for the potential crisis facing the T20 World Cup due to start on the 7th of February. As she put it: “The ICC is basically just the Dubai office of the BCCI”.

The crisis facing the T20 World Cup emerges out of Pakistan’s threat to boycott this event. Mohsin Naqvi, the head of the Pakistan Cricket Board and the country’s interior minister, has indicated that Pakistan will decide about its participation on Friday or, even, as late as Monday. Ugra says the ICC has mishandled the present crisis, which began with Bangladesh’s demand that its matches be held in Colombo rather than Kolkata and Mumbai but, actually, goes all the way back to BCCI’s instructions to Kolkata Knight Riders to drop Mustafizur Rahman from their team. She says without Pakistani participation (if that happens) the T20 World Cup would be damaged and its credibility is “out of the window”.