Jay Shah targets Pakistan, Bangladesh for pre-T20 World Cup drama: 'No single team makes...'

The chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC) Jay Shah took shots at the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) who both threatened to boycott the T20 World Cup which was held successfully across India and Sri Lanka in February-March.

Ahead of the tournament, BCB had refused to travel to India citing security concerns. However, ICC could not find any such concerns and BCB's demands to move their games to Sri Lanka were not accepted. In solidarity with Bangladesh, PCB too threatened to pull out of the World Cup before changing their stance to not playing India at the tournament.

However, PCB participated in the entire tournament including going up against India in Colombo where they faced an embarrassing defeat.

Jay Shah targets Pakistan, Bangladesh

Days after the conclusion of the 20-team event, Shah, the former secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), said that with uncertainty around the participation of "certain teams", the World Cup had become even more important.

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"This ICC World Cup was very important because there was a lot of chatter before the start of the tournament about whether certain teams would participate and how the World Cup would go ahead. As ICC chairman, I can say that no team is bigger than the organisation and no single team makes an organisation. An organisation is a combination of all teams," Shah said at the CNBC TV18 India Business Leader Awards in Mumbai on Saturday.

While Pakistan played the T20 World Cup, Bangladesh could not and Scotland replaced the Tigers for the tournament. Even as the threat of financial penalties loomed on BCB, the ICC decided against it and even handed the hosting rights of an upcoming ICC event to Bangladesh. This brought a thaw in relations between BCB and ICC after the bitterness ahead of the World Cup.

Shah hails associates for strong T20 World Cup show

The ICC chief, who received the award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Sports’, also praised the associate teams for giving fight to the established Test-playing nations.

"The World Cup has shattered all viewership records. For the first time in history, we recorded 7.2 million concurrent viewers. All records were broken in overall viewership. If you see, the USA gave India a hard time, the Netherlands troubled Pakistan, Zimbabwe beat Australia, and Nepal gave England a scare. I congratulate all the associate teams; they have done very well against the full members," he added.