CALCUTTA, 9 February 2005 — There is a distinct possibility of an India-Pakistan cricket Test match being played in Buddhadev Bhattacharya’s Calcutta instead of Narendra Modi’s Ahmedabad.
Jagmohan Dalmiya, who heads the Cricket Association of Bengal, is pulling out all stops to host the second match of Pakistan’s three-Test tour of India in Calcutta after the Pakistan Cricket Board officially conveyed its reluctance on Monday to accept Ahmedabad as one of the venues.
“After listening to the security delegation, we have requested the Indian board to shift the second Test from Ahmedabad to some other suitable Test center”, said PCB Director Abbas Zaidi.
Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s main city, was a controversial choice from the word go. Over 2,000 Muslims were butchered in the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Gujarat in 2002 with Ahmedabad witnessing the worst anti-Muslim violence in a decade.
Calcutta, on the other hand, is the capital of communist-ruled West Bengal with an unblemished record of communal amity.
Dalmiya said he has approached the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), besides Sports, Foreign and Home ministries to shift the Ahmedabad Test to Calcutta’s Eden Garden as soon as Pakistan asked India for changes to the proposed itinerary.
The BCCI released only a tentative schedule for the series and had been waiting for the Pakistan board to give the final nod on the basis of a report by a two-member team who visited the venues last week.
Besides Calcutta, Madras too has thrown its hat into the ring to host the Test tentatively allotted to Ahmedabad. Pakistan are scheduled to arrive on Feb. 25 for their first Test tour of India in six years.
The other proposed Test venues are Mohali and Bangalore. Five one-dayers are set for Cochin, Vishakapatnam, Delhi, Jamshedpur and Kanpur.
Sources said that Pakistan’s reluctance to play a Test match in Ahmedabad is no different from India’s refusal to play Test matches in Karachi and Peshawar last year.
In 2004, BCCI somehow felt that spending five days in Karachi or Peshawar was not a good idea, although it played one-day matches in both Pakistani cities.
Moreover, around 10,000 Pakistanis are expected in India for the cricket series. The PCB apparently also took their safety and well-being into account when it objected to Ahmedabad as a Test venue. The two countries resumed bilateral cricket ties in March-April last year when the Indian team played their first Test series on Pakistani soil in 15 years. The tour passed off peacefully with Saurav Ganguly’s Indians winning both the Test and one-day series.
