Najam Sethi vs Jay Shah: ACC Responds To PCB Chairman

The new Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Najam Sethi’s has been firing shots at everyone in his bad books even before he’d taken the office. The latest on his list is Jay Shah.

This time, Sethi might have taken it a bit far, attacking not only the Secretary of the BCCI, the most powerful cricket board in the world, but Jay Shah is also the President of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), and this could result in severe ramifications for the PCB.

On Thursday, Jay Shah, the ACC President, took to Twitter to reveal the pathway structure and cricket calendars for 2023 & 2024 in Asia. Details about Asia Cup, U-19 cricket, emerging players matches, and women’s cricket were presented in his tweet.

This, however, didn’t go down well with Najam Sethi, who quoted Jay Shah’s tweet on the same evening, and alleged that this schedule was made up “unilaterally” and without consulting with the PCB, in particular for the Asia Cup 2023, which Pakistan are set to host, but the tournament could be moved to the UAE.

Sethi even sarcastically asked Jay Shah to reveal the schedule of the PSL!

“Thank you @JayShah for unilaterally presenting @ACCMedia1 structure & calendars 2023-24 especially relating to Asia Cup 2023 for which 🇵🇰 is the event host. While you are at it, you might as well present structure & calendar of our PSL 2023! A swift response will be appreciated,” Sethi tweeted.

Thank you @JayShah for unilaterally presenting @ACCMedia1 structure & calendars 2023-24 especially relating to Asia Cup 2023 for which 🇵🇰 is the event host. While you are at it, you might as well present structure & calendar of our PSL 2023! A swift response will be appreciated. https://t.co/UdW2GekAfR

— Najam Sethi (@najamsethi) January 5, 2023

The ACC “vehemently denied” Najam Sethi’s allegations and slammed it as “baseless”.

A day later, the Asian Cricket Council has responded to Najam Sethi. In their statement, the ACC specifically mentioned that the calender was communicated to the PCB, but PCB didn’t gave any “comments or suggested modifications”.

“It has come to our knowledge that PCB Chairman Mr. Najam Sethi has made a comment on the ACC President unilaterally taking the decision on finalising the calendar and announcing the same. The ACC wants to clarify that it has followed established due process. The calendar was approved by its Development Committee and Finance & Marketing Committee in a meeting held on December 13th, 2022.

“The calendar was then communicated to all the participating members individually, including Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), via an email dated December 22nd, 2022. While responses were received from certain Member Boards, no comments or suggested modifications were received from PCB.

“In view of the above, Mr. Sethi’s comments on a social media platform are baseless and are vehemently denied by the ACC,” the statement said.

Grab your popcorns, folks; there’s certainly more drama to come.