\n<\/p>\n
DEVELOPING STORY<\/strong>DEVELOPING STORY, <\/span><\/p>\n Pakistan will forfeit two points if they don\u2019t take the field for their game against India in Colombo.<\/em><\/p>\n Published On 1 Feb 2026<\/span>1 Feb 2026<\/span><\/p>\n Click here to share on social media<\/p>\n share2<\/p>\n Pakistan\u2019s cricket team has been cleared to participate in the ICC T20 World Cup 2026 but will not play its game against India, the government of Pakistan said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Pakistan cricket team shall not take the field in the match scheduled on 15th February 2026 against India,\u201d the statement said on Sunday.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/p>\n The statement did not mention why Pakistan would not play its group match against India.<\/p>\n Pakistan\u2019s participation in the tournament was thrown into uncertainty after Bangladesh were ousted by the International Cricket Council (ICC) over a logistical deadlock.<\/p>\n The ICC kicked Bangladesh out of the World Cup and replaced them with Scotland because of an impasse over security concerns that\u00a0 the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) had raised about playing in India.<\/p>\n The Pakistan Cricket Board swiftly threw its weight behind Bangladesh and said it will not make a \u201cfinal decision\u201d on its team\u2019s participation until next week.<\/p>\n PCB Chairman Mohsin Naqvi met Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif last week to discuss the issue but did not clarify whether Pakistan would travel to the tournament, which begins on February 7.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was agreed that the final decision will be taken either on Friday or next Monday,\u201d Naqvi, who is also Pakistan\u2019s interior minister, said.<\/p>\n All of Pakistan\u2019s World Cup matches have been scheduled in Sri Lanka because of the fraught relations between New Delhi and Islamabad.<\/p>\n Following Bangladesh\u2019s expulsion, the ICC was accused of practising \u201cdouble standards\u201d in its extraordinary move to oust a full member nation on the basis of a logistical deadlock.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t have double standards,\u201d Naqvi said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t say for one country [India] they can do whatever they want and for the others to have to do the complete opposite. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve taken this stand and made clear Bangladesh have had an injustice done to them. They should play in the World Cup. They are a major stakeholder in cricket.\u201d<\/p>\n The T20 World Cup, co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka, features 20 nations and begins on Saturday.<\/p>\n Pakistan are drawn in Group A along with India, Namibia, Netherlands and US, and are playing all their matches in Sri Lanka. Pakistan\u2019s first match on Saturday is against Netherlands at the Sinhalese Sports Club Cricket Ground in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.<\/p>\n If Pakistan boycott their match against India, they will forfeit two points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, Pakistan will forfeit two points if they don\u2019t take the field for their game against India in Colombo. Published On 1 Feb 20261 Feb 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Pakistan\u2019s cricket team has been cleared to participate in the ICC T20 World Cup 2026 but will not<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[10057,1144,130,22322,426,1978,150,2757,2441,550],"class_list":{"0":"post-43403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-boycott","9":"tag-cricket","10":"tag-cup","11":"tag-february","12":"tag-india","13":"tag-match","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-pakistan","16":"tag-t20","17":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n