Dharamsala’s loss is now Kolkata’s gain as the marquee India-Pakistan fixture of the World T20 on March 19 has been moved to the Eden Gardens due to security fears.
ICC’s CEO Dave Richardson made the official announcement on Wednesday.
A decision has been taken to relocate the India-Pakistan match from Dharamsala to Kolkata due to security reasons. The match will now be played at the same time and date (March 19, 7:30pm). The concerns initially arose following alleged public comments recently reported by the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, warning of demonstration and attempts to disrupt the peaceful conduct of the match. Our concerns relate both to uncertainty as to the level of those threats as well as the level of commitment to implement any security plan developed to mitigate such threats.Dave Richardson, ICC CEO
In a late night development on Tuesday, the Pakistan Cricket Board had put its team departure to India on hold following security concerns for the fixture originally scheduled to be played in Dharamsala.
As per the ICC itinerary, Pakistan are slated to camp in Kolkata where they will play two warm-up games (against Bengal, March 12 and Sri Lanka, March 14) and one in the main round against Group A qualifier on March 16.
While the team were then scheduled to travel to Dharamsala for the match against India, they can now remain in Kolkata before heading to Mohali where they face New Zealand March 22.
After a recce of Dharamsala, the PCB were reluctant to play there citing security concerns.
“The Himachal Pradesh chief minister has not committed full security for the match and the Indian government has also not come up with any assuring statement... Under the prevailing circumstances how can we allow our team to play there?” PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan said yesterday.
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