Kerala Cricket Association’s attempt to organize ODI in Kochi draws widespread controversy

BCCI's tours and fixtures committee had allotted one of the games in the five-match ODI series between India and Windies to KCA in November later this year. And the association has been trying hard to get one of it at the JNI, overlooking Thiruvananthapuram’s Sports Hub that had successfully hosted a T20I against New Zealand in November.

Over the course of this week, I have read various reports that the turf at the Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium will be dug up to help facilitate the ODI cricket match between India and West Indies. For many different reasons, I feel this is wrong.

— CK Vineeth (@ckvineeth)

Rino Anto posted-

Us players spend 90 minutes on the pitch. FIFA officials come and go. Fans come, shout and leave. But throughout the year, there are men and women who spend countless hours under the sun making sure that our stage is set. Let’s not do this to them.

— Rino Anto (@rinoanto)

KCA, however, has played down the accusations of playing power politics to regain control over JNI and stated that they have always wanted cricket and football to co-exist at the same venue.

"Football won't cease to exist if we conduct cricket at the venue. From the very start two decades back, the stadium has seen both cricket and football being played here. So we are not saying either football or cricket, we want both games to co-exist here," KCA secretary Jayesh George told TOI.

Amidst the outrage, KCA has seen a strong opposition from Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, who has questioned KCA’s decision to overlook a ready venue like Sports Hub in favour of JNI. He posted,

Spoke to CoA Chief VinodRai to denounce Kerala Cricket Assn's bizarre decision to transfer the India-WI ODI from a match-ready Trivandrum stadium to Kochi, whose ground was last used for the U17 Football World Cup. He has promised to review the matter. KCA motives highly suspect

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor)