KARACHI
\nThe International Cricket Council is facing intense criticism after releasing World Test Championship Final highlights that disproportionately featured chairman Jay Shah, overshadowing South Africa\u2019s historic victory over Australia at Lord\u2019s. The 45-second promotional video has drawn widespread mockery for prioritising the administrator over the athletes who decided the match.
\nThe controversial video opens with a panoramic shot of the Lord\u2019s before abruptly cutting to Shah\u2019s grand entrance. An analysis reveals the chairman appeared 11 times in the 23-shot sequence, including multiple close-ups of him clapping and observing. In contrast, Player of the Match Aiden Markram was shown just twice, while Australian captain Pat Cummins appeared only briefly.
\nSouth Africa\u2019s winning captain Temba Bavuma featured five times \u2014 fewer than half of Shah\u2019s appearances.\u201d
\nHow many runs did Jay Shah score in this final? How many wickets?\u201d asked Sri Lankan journalist Andrew Fidel Fernando, capturing the prevailing sentiment? bIndian reporter Kuldip Lal called the video \u201cunbelievable,\u201d while British analyst Aatif Nawaz quipped it appeared \u201cself-edited on a mobile phone\u201d by Shah himself.
\nThe editorial choices seemed particularly misguided given the match\u2019s drama. Kagiso Rabada\u2019s nine-wicket match haul and Markram\u2019s fourth-innings century \u2014 both pivotal to South Africa\u2019s maiden Test championship title \u2014 received less emphasis than Shah adjusting his jacket.
\n\u201cBlink during this video and you\u2019ll miss Cummins completely \u2014 but Jay Shah? Impossible,\u201d noted Australian journalist Andrew Wu. UAE-based sports writer Paul Radley observed the video made it appear \u201cJay Shah was player of the match,\u201d while UK journalist Charlie Reynolds pointed out Shah\u2019s 11 appearances matched the combined screen time given to South Africa\u2019s entire team.
\nThe controversy follows other questionable ICC decisions under Shah\u2019s leadership, including last year\u2019s Champions Trophy relocation and an increasingly India-centric tournament schedule.Notably, the ICC social media team had days earlier posted a separate video focused solely on Shah\u2019s activities at Lord\u2019s during the opening day of the final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KARACHI The International Cricket Council is facing intense criticism after releasing World Test Championship Final highlights that disproportionately featured chairman Jay Shah, overshadowing South Africa\u2019s historic victory over Australia at Lord\u2019s. The 45-second promotional video has drawn widespread mockery for prioritising the administrator over the athletes who decided the match. The controversial video opens with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-484965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n