Fears grow that India will pull out of Champions Trophy
India’s participation in next month’s Champions Trophy will be discussed next week at an emergency meeting in Mumbai as cricket’s most powerful country decides how to react to a cut in its share of revenue from global events.
Reports in India have suggested a withdrawal from the Champions Trophy is a possibility after its board lost a vote at the International Cricket Council on Wednesday over cutting the country’s share from global tournaments from $570 million (£442 million) to $293 million (£227 million).
The threats are not being taken seriously at this stage by the England and Wales Cricket Board, whose representatives were at the ICC meetings this week, where a withdrawal was not mentioned.
Television adverts for the tournament have been running in India for several weeks and the Indian board would risk angering millions of supporters if it did not send its team to defend the only global trophy they currently hold.
India have delayed naming their team for the tournament. The deadline was Tuesday but it was not submitted while the Indian board awaited the outcomes of the meetings in Dubai. There is no punishment for not meeting the deadline. Lewis Hamilton has fully endorsed Serena Williams’ impassioned response to Ilie Nastase’s racial slur against her unborn child, describing the 23-time major champion as “one of the greatest people I know – a powerful, independent black woman and a born leader”.
As a mixed-race athlete himself, Hamilton hit back strongly against Nastase’s remark that Williams’s baby with fiancé Alexis Ohanian, the white co-founder of Reddit, would be “chocolate and milk”. Williams wrote by way of riposte: “It disappoints me to know we live in a society where people like Ilie Nastase can make such racist comments.”
Hamilton, who reposted her message on Instagram, said: “I’m very much with her in what she said. I thought it was beautiful. I just think she’s awesome. Rather than react in a negative way, reading what she has written just inspires me and, I hope, inspires others.”
The triple world champion was also pressed on the issue of whether Mercedes will use team orders this season to take the fight to Ferrari, where Sebastian Vettel leads the world championship ahead of Sunday’s Russian Grand Prix here in Sochi.
“I do not want them and never have,” Hamilton said. “Team orders has always been a very odd thing and something I’ve never particularly liked. But it is in our rules, and our approach is that the team needs to win the race.”