Indian Olympic Association secretary general Randhir Singh on Tuesday lashed out at the BCCI for not sending teams to this year's Asian Games in China and said IOA will write to the Cricket Board asking it to reconsider the decision."I'm very, very disappointed. It really hurts because we were really keen to have cricket in this multi-discipline events," Randhir said.
"On behalf of IOA, we will write a letter to the BCCI tomorrow and ask them to reconsider their decision," he said.Randhir, also the Secretary General of Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), said the onus was now on the Asian Cricket Council to take up the matter with BCCI.
"The ACC worked really hard to get cricket included in the Asian Games. So it is ACC's responsibility to take up the issue with the BCCI."It will be a big embarrassment for OCA if India, where cricket is a religion, does not participate in the Asian Games," Randhir said.
"This is particularly sad because cricket is a major sport in our country and we expected medals from the Asian Games."China built great facilities for cricket. So BCCI's decision is unfortunate because all other cricket playing Asian countries will participate," added Randhir.
BCCI today cited international commitments and announced that neither the men's nor the women's team would go to Guangzhou which hosts the Asian Games from November 12-27.Randhir, however, refused to accept the cricket board's reasoning, saying the BCCI was well aware of the Games dates.
"All the informations regarding the Asian Games was there with them (BCCI). The Games dates were out four years ago, so it was not at wise on their part to back out at the last moment. The BCCI has time till June 15 to give their consent,"he said.
BCCI has always been reluctant to send teams to multi-discipline events and they sent a second-string squad to the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.
Organisers of the Delhi Commonwealth Games were keen tohave Twenty20 cricket in the October 3-14 mega-event but theBCCI insisted it did not want to promote Twenty20 cricket while. PTI
