In a major goof-up, the International Cricket Council (ICC), on its official website, removed Delhi's Ferozeshah Kotla from the list of venues for the 2016 World T20 Championships, which gets underway in less than a month's time. The glitch was set right later but not before causing a flutter in the BCCI and DDCA. Kotla is scheduled to host four World T20 games apart from women's T20 matches. But the venue has been dogged by controversies lately and it's status as a venue remains under question. The ICC, in a rush to declare the final fixtures list, not only removed Kotla as one of the venues but also named Nagpur and Bengaluru as replacement centres. The BCCI, however, was clueless about the development. “We have not made any changes to the World T20 venues list yet. Kotla is very much scheduled to host the matches. I will need to have a word with ICC regarding these fixtures,” Board's Game Development manager Ratnakar Shetty said.
Within half an hour of Shetty's comment, Kotla was restored as one of the seven World T20 venues.“It must have been a communication or technical error which resulted in this mistake. The correct fixtures are back on the website. The call for change of venues has to come from the host board, in this case the BCCI. We can't make that decision. If there are any changes in venues, ICC will be the first to inform the media,” a source at the ICC said.
