The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman, Mohsin Naqvi, finally clarified why he didn’t boycott the Asia Cup 2025 match against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) despite threatening to do so if the ICC didn’t meet their demand of removing Andy Pycroft for the remainder of the eight-team tournament following the no-handshake saga in the match between India and Pakistan.
The PCB’s theatrics continued on Wednesday, hours before the scheduled start of the match against the UAE, pushing the game back by an hour. The Pakistan body tried its best to get Pycroft removed, but to no avail.
Pycroft remained as the match referee for the match between Pakistan and UAE, and just minutes before the start of the contest, the PCB issued a statement, saying Pycroft apologised for his actions.
When the match between the UAE and Pakistan was delayed by one hour, Naqvi was involved in discussions with former PCB chiefs Ramiz Raja and Najam Sethi regarding what to do and whether to go through with the boycott of the match, which would have ultimately led to Pakistan crashing out of the tournament.
Naqvi said that the boycott was a very big decision, and the situation was being monitored. He said that following the support of Pakistan Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif and other key government officials, it was decided that the team would continue in the tournament and play against the UAE.
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“As you all know, there has been a crisis going on since 14th September. We had objections about the role of the match referee. Just a short while back, the match referee had a conversation with the team coach, captain and manager. He said that this incident (no handshakes) should not have happened. We had also requested the ICC earlier to set up an inquiry into the code violation during the match,” Naqvi told reporters on Wednesday.
“We believe that politics and sports can’t go together. This is sports, and let it remain a sport. Cricket should be separate from all this. I requested Sethi Saab and Rameez Raja Saab. If we had to go for a boycott, which was a very big decision, the prime minister, government officials, and lots of other people were also involved, and we got their full support. We were monitoring the issue,” he added.
(More to follow…)
