The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has demanded an explanation from the ICC for playing the Indian national anthem during ENG vs AUS Champions Trophy tie. The gaffe occurred at the start of the match at the Gaddafi stadium in Lahore on Saturday. The Indian national anthem was briefly played instead of England and Australia’s, leaving hosts Pakistan red-faced.
Pakistan blames ICC for playing Indian national anthem
As per news agency PTI, a PCB source claimed that it was hard to understand how the Indian national anthem was on the playlist when India was not visiting Pakistan for Champions Trophy. The source claimed that ICC was responsible for managing the playlist of the national anthems of the teams.
“The PCB has made it clear that the ICC needs to offer some explanation as their people are responsible for the (national anthem) playlist of teams in the Champions Trophy. Since India is not playing in Pakistan, it is hard to understand how their anthem was played by mistake from the playlist,” the source said.
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The gaffe occurred at a time when the PCB has already pulled up the ICC over the absence of Pakistan’s name from the watermark that was aired during India’s Champions Trophy opener against Bangladesh in Dubai. In response to PCB, the ICC reportedly has said that it felt the logo was too wordy and the three-line branding was too lengthy and hence it resorted to using a shorter one. It, however, agreed to use the three-line graphic in all remaining matches.
India will play all their CT 2025 matches in Dubai, as per the hybrid model adopted. The side last toured Pakistan in 2008 following which geopolitical tensions has forced the former to boycott cricket in the latter.
