Hussain and Atherton Ridiculed for Suggesting Team India Change Hotels in 2023 World Cup: Dubai Claim Backfires

Former England captains Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton triggered backlash from the Indian cricket community when they suggested that the Rohit Sharma-led Indian team had an unfair advantage by playing all their matches at one venue in the 2025 Champions Trophy. In response, former Indian cricketer Wasim Jaffer pointed out that they seemed to have forgotten about the 2023 ODI World Cup, where teams like India were forced to play matches in various locations.

The Indian government did not allow the national team to travel to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy. BCCI, hence, proposed the hybrid model, and Dubai was picked as the neutral venue for all their matches.

Speaking on the Podcast, Nasser and Atherton felt playing at one venue gave India the advantage, as unlike the rest of the teams, they don't have to travel from one venue to another or consider team selection based on conditions.

Jaffer, however, ridiculed the statement, saying that to make them happy, the India team should now check into different hotels.

"Just to make these guys happy, the ICC should have probably played India one game in Sharjah and one game in Abu Dhabi and probably allowed them to check in into another hotel. Then, this topic wouldn't have come up. Yeah, I mean, if India doesn't want to go, Pakistan and every country has that choice," he said.

"India, obviously for political reasons or the government's involvement, doesn't want to go there. So then, what choices do we have? I mean, we want India and Pakistan to play in this tournament. A tournament is not going to happen without India. So, just to silence all these things, India should have played in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and should have checked into another hotel here and there just to stop this conversation."

Did India complain during 2023 ODI World Cup?

Two years ago, during the home ICC tournament, the Indian team was the only side to play a match at nine venues, including no consecutive matches in a single city. Hence, the Men in Blue travelled 12874 kilometres over 35 days, and only twice did they have a break longer than four days.

Jaffer reminded Nasser and Atherton that none of the Indian players or the experts complained about it then.

"If you talk about the 2023 World Cup, India played on all nine different venues. India never played two back-to-back games whereas all the other teams played, and we never mentioned that. Pakistan played in Hyderabad, I think, for a couple of games; Bangladesh played in Kolkata. Many other teams also played back-to-back games, but India never played. But we never mentioned that. Eventually, you have to play good cricket to win tournaments and lift the trophy," he said.

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