India-England match: Mumbai Cricket Association playing it safe?

Kolkata’s loss could well have been Mumbai’s gain, but the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) is not too confident of staging the India-England match here on February 27.

Suggestions were made that the match could be staged at the renovated Wankhede Stadium, but the local association does not want to take a chance.

Sharad Pawar, who heads the International Cricket Council (ICC) as well as the MCA, too, was believed to be interested in exploring the possibility of hosting the match on his ‘home’ turf. However, his colleagues in the association are, apparently, not too keen.

“We’re ready but we don’t want to take chances,” said an MCA official.

The main issue facing them is the ‘artificial’ grass in the outfield. They are not sure if the grass will hold if they stage a match as early as February 27. Pawar will perform the vaastu puja at the Wankhede on February 1. And the MCA will host a zonal U-19 match the very next day. However, the boundary line for that game will be restricted to 70 yards.

A high-level meeting of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will take place on January 31 and a final decision on the new venue will be taken then. The ICC has asked the BCCI to nominate an alternate venue by January 31.

Chennai and Bangalore are emerging as the favourites even as two other centres have been ruled out. All hosting associations had earlier come to an understanding that centres staging a knockout match will not insist on an India league encounter.

That means Ahmedabad (quarterfinal), Mohali (semifinal) and even Mumbai, the venue for the final, won’t get to host an India league game.

Moreover, Nagpur and Delhi, which are hosting matches on February 25 and 28 respectively, cannot host the February 27 match. At this stage, it is difficult hazard a guess if it will be Chennai or Bangalore. The England team is likely to be based in Bangalore, so the Garden City stands a good chance. However, Chennai is BCCI secretary and president-elect N Srinivasan’s ‘home’. So you never know.

Meanwhile, the ICC has ruled out any rethink on its decision on taking the match away from the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. It has, however, sent a list of dos and don’ts to the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB). The CAB will have to fulfill these conditions before February 7 to stand a chance to stage the remaining three matches — on March 15, 18 and 20.

Meanwhile, BCCI president Shashank Manohar said the ICC was within its right to take the match away from Eden. “This is an ICC tournament and it has every right to decide on this. We’ve tried our best for the CAB but the final word was always going to be the ICC’s,” Manohar added.