Indian Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor on Monday criticised the politicisation of cricket, calling it “fairly disgraceful” that sport was being dragged right into a dispute “on either side” amid the widening fallout from Pakistan’s determination to boycott the T20 World Cup match towards India.
Talking to Indian media, the four-time Lok Sabha member from the Indian Nationwide Congress (INC) stated Bangladesh pacer Mustafizur Rahman “mustn’t have been denied his contract to play in Kolkata”, describing it as a “most unlucky intrusion of politics”.
Tharoor stated Bangladesh’s response was “an overreaction” but additionally mirrored the identical politicisation, including that Pakistan was attempting to indicate solidarity with Bangladesh and warning: “This complete factor is spiralling uncontrolled.”
He urged stakeholders to deal with the episode as a “wake-up name” and phone one another “on an emergency foundation”, suggesting the Worldwide Cricket Council (ICC) may present a platform for de-escalation. Whereas acknowledging it was “too late” for this event, he stated: “It is too late for this event, however for the longer term, we won’t go on like this endlessly.”
Pakistan introduced on Sunday that it will take part within the ICC Males’s T20 World Cup 2026 however wouldn’t take the sector within the match scheduled for February 15 towards India, following a gathering between Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Mohsin Naqvi and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
The ICC, in response, stated it hoped the PCB would work in direction of a “mutually acceptable decision”, warning that “selective participation” was tough to reconcile with the premise of a worldwide occasion and that it “undermines the spirit and sanctity” of competitions constructed on sporting integrity, competitiveness, consistency and equity.
Authorities sources advised Geo Information the boycott was supposed to indicate solidarity with Bangladesh and was linked to what they described because the ICC’s perceived biased stance in direction of Bangladesh, alleging that ICC chief Jay Shah had made partial choices and that completely different requirements had been being utilized on the ICC platform.
It could be recalled that the ICC had pushed Bangladesh out of the following T20 World Cup, bringing in Scotland after the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) refused to let its staff journey to India, citing safety issues within the wake of Mustafizur Rahman’s ouster from the Indian Premier League.
The ICC later stated it was not possible to revise the schedule so near the event’s February 7 begin.
In the meantime, beneath an current association between Pakistan and India, Pakistan’s ICC fixtures are to be held at impartial venues, with Pakistan’s matches scheduled to be performed in Sri Lanka.
