Cricket Association of Pondicherry (CAP) has been in the headlines for wrong reasons in the past few weeks. Earlier, the association’s T20 League got postponed due to legal issues. CAP has now written to BCCI to stage international games in the Union territory.
CAP’s representative, P. Damodaran has written an E-mail to Sourav Ganguly and requested the Indian board to allot T-20 World Cup matches to CAP Stadium. The 2021 T-20 World Cup is set to take place in India during October and November next year. The Pondicherry Association was included in the BCCI fold two years ago after the adoption of the Lodha Committee recommendations. These recomendations led to many new teams taking part in the various BCCI tournaments but CAP found it difficult to participate in those competitions.
After sending the letter, Damodaran said, “CAP has built a beautiful stadium and in all, we have six stadiums with floodlights. We are hosting domestic games for the last few years. We have requested BCCI to consider us to host international games or any World Cup games in the future. It will help smaller venues like us to grow further.”
Cricket Association of Pondicherry has offered the Indian board to host teams from two zones (West and South Zone) during the upcoming Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy. The Pondicherry’s Cricket Stadium has six world-class grounds with a four-star hotel to accommodate all the players in safe Covid-19 bio-bubble.
Earlier in October, Lt. Governor, Kiran Bedi had insisted that CAP Stadium has been built on illegal grounds. The Governor also claimed that the association has misused BCCI’s funds. On CAP’s request, this matter will be discussed during the BCCI’s Annual General Meeting on December 24.