Pakistani and Indian ladies’s group gamers shake fingers after World Cup at Newlands Stadium in Cape City on February 12, 2023. — AFP
KARACHI: Considerations have emerged that India might as soon as once more politicise cricket, this time on the ICC Girls’s World Cup, the place arch-rivals Pakistan and India are set to face off on October 5 in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Indian sports activities journalist Boria Majumdar urged in a social media publish that the upcoming ladies’s fixture would carry the identical off-field tensions witnessed through the current Asia Cup, the place India’s males’s group drew criticism for unsportsmanlike behaviour.
“The India-Pakistan game in Colombo will not be another cricket match. It will be a continuation of the Asia Cup, and the only thing that changes is the gender,” Majumdar wrote in a publish on X, hinting at doable refusal of handshakes, heightened drama, and political undertones.
“There will be no handshakes, lots of off-field drama and heightened stakes,” the Indian journalist claimed.
Throughout the lately concluded Asia Cup 2025, India, who gained the match after beating Pakistan within the last, have been extensively criticised for mixing politics with sport.
Indian gamers refused to shake fingers with their Pakistani counterparts within the three encounters through the match.
The Indian aspect additional declined to just accept the trophy from Asian Cricket Council (ACC) president Mohsin Naqvi as a result of he’s a Pakistani, and made politically charged remarks in post-match ceremonies and press conferences.
The remarks have sparked debate amongst followers, who concern that the spirit of sportsmanship might as soon as once more be overshadowed by political gestures.
The Board of Management for Cricket in India (BCCI) has since then determined to take the trophy dispute to the Worldwide Cricket Council (ICC).
“We decided not to take the trophy from the ACC chairman, who happens to be one of the main leaders of Pakistan,” BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia instructed the Indian media retailers.
The BCCI secretary confirmed their plans to file a criticism in opposition to Naqvi over the trophy row within the subsequent assembly of the ICC, scheduled in November.
As per the sources, ACC Chairman Naqvi, who additionally heads the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), has rejected BCCI Vice-President Rajeev Shukla’s repeated demand handy over the Asia Cup 2025 trophy.
Pakistan’s ladies’s group, getting ready for some of the high-stakes encounters of the match, now faces the query of whether or not to reply to any provocation in form or to rise above and focus solely on the sport.
There isn’t a response from the PCB on the matter but.
The current developments have made Pakistan-India as some of the anticipated contests of the Girls’s World Cup, not for cricketing causes however for the political baggage that more and more surrounds it.
