‘Opt out of the entire tournament’: Sunil Gavaskar blasts Pakistan’s ‘baffling’ decision to snub India game at T20 World Cup

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Pakistan had stated that they will not take the field against India in the group stage fixture of the T20 World Cup. The decision was taken by the Pakistan government earlier this month, while giving its team the approval to travel to Sri Lanka to feature in the tournament, which began on February 7.

“The Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan grants approval to the Pakistan Cricket Team to participate in the ICC World T20 2026, however, the Pakistan Cricket Team shall not take the field in the match scheduled on 15th February against India,” said a post on X (Formerly Twitter).

Ever since Bangladesh put in a request to move its matches from India to Sri Lanka citing security concerns and failed, Pakistan had been protesting against the decision. In a show of support to the Bangladesh Cricket Board, they voted in favour of their request in the ICC board meeting and their chairman Mohsin Naqvi even threatened to boycott the tournament.

Gavaskar also took a dig at the “old powers” for questioning India’s stance on the Bangladesh issue. He said, “Over the next few days, we were told by many distinguished people connected with Pakistan cricket and politics that they had decided they were not going to be bullied by India. Hence the decision not to play India. Only they can explain how India bullies other nations into voting with them. Then there are some others, especially from the old powers, for whom India replacing them as the power centre in the world game has never gone down well. They were quick to join the noise and ask whether, if India had decided not to play in a country, the ICC would have accepted their position or thrown them out of the tournament.”