'Nothing to do with India': ICC clarification revealed by Alex Hartley amid Women's T20 World Cup scheduling row
‘Nothing to do with India’: ICC clarification revealed by Alex Hartley amid Women’s T20 World Cup scheduling row originally appeared on Cricket News.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Alex Hartley and Kate Cross faced death threats after their original scheduling comments.
- ICC clarifies World Cup scheduling wasn’t designed to favour India specifically.
- India missed semifinals anyway, finishing third after losing to Australia.
ICC clears air on scheduling row as England duo face backlash
England cricketers Kate Cross and Alex Hartley have opened up about facing serious online abuse, including death threats, after suggesting the International Cricket Council had structured the Women’s T20 World Cup schedule to benefit India.
The governing body has since stepped in with an internal clarification, denying any such intention behind the scheduling arrangement.
The row traces back to comments made on No Balls: The Cricket Podcast, where Cross and Hartley pointed out that India appeared to know their potential semifinal fixture well in advance of the tournament starting in England.
“Can we talk about the fact that I have seen today that if India qualify for the semis, they’re guaranteed to play in the Tuesday semifinal because the ICC thinks that it’s the best one for them to play in time-wise,” Cross had said.
Hartley backed up the observation at the time, noting that similar scheduling patterns had appeared across both men’s and women’s ICC events previously.
ICC steps in with an explanation
In a follow-up episode, Hartley revealed she had reached out directly to an ICC official to get clarity on the matter.
According to what she was told, the semifinal timings were structured purely to maximise global viewership across different markets, rather than being tailored around India’s participation specifically.
“I’ve actually spoken to somebody at the ICC to clarify everything that has been said. This is what the ICC said: ‘We’d like to clarify that this has nothing to do with India and that this has been done to optimise spectatorship in the UK as much as the global viewing.’ So, my interpretation of that is that the 6:30 start is for the UK audience,” Hartley said.
MORE: ‘Does no one care?’: Australia star questions lack of attention for Women’s T20 World Cup
Death threats follow after India-bias claim made by Cross & Hartley
Hartley confirmed that she and Cross had received death threats and sustained abuse online following their original remarks. Cross described waking up to roughly 450 comments on a single Instagram post discussing the ICC scheduling, a huge jump compared to the usual 30 or so comments their posts typically receive.
“We’ve been getting death threats and abuse online,” Hartley said.
While Cross revealed: “I woke up this morning to 450 comments on that Instagram post about the ICC scheduling for the semifinals. Normally, we get around 30 comments per post. There’s been a little bit of confusion because what we said doesn’t warrant death threats and abuse.”
Kate Cross clarifies she wasn’t criticising India
Cross was keen to insist that her original comments had never been meant as an attack on the Indian women’s cricket team. She claimed the point had simply been that tournament scheduling shouldn’t be built around any single team’s progress.
“I was just saying, ‘I don’t think that any tournament should be based on one cricket team getting through to a semifinal.’ Turns out that wasn’t right anyway,” she said.
“To the person who quoted us, if you’re going to quote us, quote what we actually said, not what you think we said. People have opened it up to their own interpretation.”
As it turned out, the entire controversy became somewhat moot from India’s perspective, since Harmanpreet Kaur’s side failed to even reach the semifinal stage after a defeat to Australia in their final Group A match, ultimately finishing third in the standings.
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