Commentator Simon Doull slams Broadcaster’s Arrogance For India’s Poor Scheduling

India’s campaign in the ICC T20 World Cup ended with a 9-wicket victory against Namibia on Monday, November 8 in their last group stage game, with the Men-in-Blue failing to qualify any further. There have been many criticisms around their short-lived campaign. Former New Zealand cricketer Simon Doull has now come up with some harsh comments about the scheduling of the India matches in the tournament. In a show on Cricbuzz, Doull blamed the broadcaster’s arrogance for India’s poor scheduling.

According to Doull, since the broadcasters wanted to keep the important games of India on Holidays, India had to play their matches with a poor schedule. Doull believes that there was a real air of arrogance around the scheduling and that is what the broadcasters wanted with involvement from the ICC as they wanted India’s fixtures around the holidays around Diwali and Sundays to have India’s games at peak times.

Doull feels that India’s first game was rightly decided to be against Pakistan, but the New Zealand game should have come after India had faced Afghanistan, Scotland, and Namibia. It would have also made it interesting as this clash could have been potentially a knockout game to enter the semis.

India started their campaign against Pakistan on Sunday, October 24, and then had a week’s gap before their second game also on Sunday, October 31. India then played their third game against Afghanistan on the eve of Diwali, also known as ‘Chhoti (small) Diwali’ for many.

India wicketkeeper-batter Dinesh Karthik was also on the show and opined that in hindsight, India would be hoping that the last three games that they won with huge margins should have been their first three.

The final game against Namibia was also Virat Kohli as India’s captain in the shortest format of the game, who had announced to quit T20 captaincy after the World Cup.