Thank you, Pakistan, says Bangladesh on cricket politics, reveals off-field nexus
It is now out in the open. Bangladesh and Pakistan silently joined hands over the T20 World Cup 2026 against India. Bangladesh’s Sports Adviser, Asif Nazrul, thanked Islamabad for backing the country’s boycott of the tournament with its own boycott of a game against India in Colombo.
“Thank you, Pakistan,” Nazrul posted on Facebook. “Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said that his country has decided to boycott the match against India in protest of Bangladesh being excluded from the T20 World Cup,” he added.
Nazrul is the Sports Adviser in the unelected interim set-up led by Muhammad Yunus. The adviser functions like the minister of the department. In effect, Nazrul is the sports minister of the interim regime that was installed after Sheikh Hasina’s government was ousted in the July-August 2024 agitation.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has been told by the Sharif government to skip the February 15 game against India in Colombo after Bangladesh were replaced by Scotland for refusing to play its games on Indian soil over “security concerns”.
The thank-you note from Nazrul comes a day after a statement by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
“We have taken a very clear stand on the T20 World Cup that we won’t play the match against India because there should be no politics on the sports field,” Sharif stated at a government meeting in Islamabad.
“We have taken a very considered stance, and we should completely stand by Bangladesh, and I think this is a very appropriate decision. We are with Bangladesh,” he added.
Sharif’s remarks were the first official comments from either the Pakistan government or the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) that made public the reason behind the boycott of the T20 World Cup match.
Cricket politics is in line with the changes taking place on the ground in Bangladesh after the fall of the Hasina government. The post-Hasina regime has seen a shift towards Pakistan, from which it fought for liberation in 1971. Pakistan has been reciprocating.
Last week, Bangladesh and Pakistan resumed Dhaka-Islamabad direct flights after a gap of 14 years.
Earlier, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB)’s claim that India was unsafe for its cricketers collapsed because of its own contradictions. Days after Dhaka’s cricket board refused to send its team to India for the T20 World Cup citing security concerns, a Bangladeshi shooter was cleared by Dhaka to land in New Delhi to compete in the Asian Shooting Championships.
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