Pakistan ends boycott and will face India at T20 World Cup

Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

Pak­istan re­versed its de­ci­sion to boy­cott the T20 World Cup game against In­dia and was di­rect­ed to “take the field” in Colom­bo next Sun­day.

A week­long im­passe end­ed on Mon­day, a day af­ter In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil di­rec­tor Im­ran Khawa­ja and Bangladesh Crick­et Board pres­i­dent Amin­ul Is­lam ar­rived in La­hore to talk with the Pak­istan Crick­et Board about re­in­stat­ing the biggest and rich­est game in crick­et.

Back-chan­nel talks reached the high­est lev­el, and the Pak­istan gov­ern­ment an­nounced on X, “In view of the out­comes achieved in mul­ti­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions, as well as the re­quest of friend­ly coun­tries, the Gov­ern­ment of Pak­istan here­by di­rects the Pak­istan Na­tion­al Crick­et Team to take the field on Feb­ru­ary 15, 2026, for its sched­uled fix­ture in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

“More­over, this de­ci­sion has been tak­en with the aim of pro­tect­ing the spir­it of crick­et, and to sup­port the con­ti­nu­ity of this glob­al sport in all par­tic­i­pat­ing na­tions.”

The ICC said: “It was agreed that all mem­bers will re­spect their com­mit­ments as per the terms of par­tic­i­pa­tion for ICC events and do all that is nec­es­sary to en­sure that the on­go­ing edi­tion of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup is a suc­cess.”

Af­ter Bangladesh was boot­ed from the World Cup two weeks ago when the ICC dis­missed its se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns about play­ing in In­dia, PCB chair­man Mohsin Naqvi de­cried the ICC’s “dou­ble stan­dards” and “in­jus­tice.” The Pak­istan gov­ern­ment told its crick­et board to boy­cott the In­dia group game in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Bangladesh.

But the con­se­quences of no Pak­istan-In­dia game threat­ened cur­rent and fu­ture TV rights deals and ICC fund­ing of the glob­al game.

The Pak­istan gov­ern­ment not­ed in its state­ment that the PCB was for­mal­ly asked by ICC mem­bers in­clud­ing Sri Lan­ka and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates to end the boy­cott. On Mon­day, Bangladesh’s Is­lam re­quest­ed the match go ahead “for the ben­e­fit of the en­tire crick­et ecosys­tem.”

“We are deeply moved by Pak­istan’s ef­forts to go above and be­yond in sup­port­ing Bangladesh dur­ing this pe­ri­od,” Is­lam said. “Long may our broth­er­hood flour­ish.”

The ICC eased its stance on Mon­day when it said it would not pe­nal­ize Bangladesh for miss­ing the T20 World Cup for the first time. The ICC added Bangladesh had the right to ap­proach the dis­pute res­o­lu­tion com­mit­tee “should it choose to do so.”

Naqvi then an­nounced a de­ci­sion by Pak­istan with­in 48 hours, but the fi­nal clinch­er ap­peared to come from a phone call on Mon­day evening be­tween Pak­istan Prime Min­is­ter She­hbaz Sharif and Sri Lan­ka Pres­i­dent Anu­ra Ku­mara Dis­sanayake.

World Cup co-host Sri Lan­ka is host­ing Pak­istan for all of its match­es.

The Pak­istan gov­ern­ment said Dis­sanayake asked Sharif “to ac­cord se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion to am­i­ca­bly re­solve the cur­rent im­passe.”

Sharif green-lit the In­dia matchup again and gave his best wish­es to the “Men in Green,” who have al­ready start­ed the World Cup with a win over the Nether­lands.

Bangladesh will be award­ed a glob­al tour­na­ment be­fore the men’s World Cup in 2031, the ICC said.

ICC chief ex­ec­u­tive San­jog Gup­ta said in a state­ment that Bangladesh’s ab­sence from the T20 World Cup “is re­gret­table but it does not al­ter the ICC’s en­dur­ing com­mit­ment to Bangladesh as a core crick­et­ing na­tion.” —IS­LAM­ABAD (AP)