The Indian cricket team’s refusal to shake hands with the Pakistan team during the Asia Cup group stage encounter on Sunday led to plenty of anger across the border, with the Pakistan team management lodging a protest and branding the actions of Team India as ‘unsporting and against spirit of game’. Now former Pakistan cricketer Misbah ul Haq has also launched an angry tirade against the Indian team for its actions and said that the Men in Blue “lost grace” by their gesture. He proclaimed that the “maqsad (motive)” of playing cricket was different than what the Indian team had made it out to be by their actions.
Team India captain Suryakumar Yadav—who had also snubbed his Pakistan counterpart Salman Ali Agha during the toss—had explained the team’s actions during the toss by saying: “I feel few things in life are ahead of sportsmen’s spirit also.”
Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Mohsin Naqvi, through an X post which he later deleted, said that Pakistan had also lodged a formal complaint against match referee Andy Pycroft with the ICC as the official had requested the captains “not to shake hands during the toss”.
In his tweet, Naqvi is reported to have said: “Let’s hope future victories are celebrated by all teams with grace.”
If you bring any political statement or even a gesture to the cricket field, there are very heavy penalties, and you can even get a ban as a player.
When asked about this tweet from Naqvi and the gesture from India on the Game on Hai show on PTV Sports, Misbah said: “There are very strict regulations in the sport for these kinds of things (political gestures from players or teams). You see, if you bring any political statement or even a gesture to the cricket field, there are very heavy penalties, and you can even get a ban as a player. So I think it’s absolutely not allowed, and one word was very important in this tweet from Mohsin Naqvi: grace. Whoever is doing this is just losing grace.
Misbah continued: “Where India should have given an answer to something, you should have responded there. This is a cricket field. Why are you mixing those things? So this is a strange mindset that no one in the world can understand. What are they basically trying to do? It’s like, where should they vent their anger? This is not on! What is sports, basically? You go, you play, it’s a test of your skills. That’s it. A cricketer, or any player on the field, goes to entertain the crowd. Their purpose is completely different. You are connecting it with everything, which I think is not the correct way to go about it. It’s very disappointing, and it’s not understandable what they are trying to do.”
The match between India and Pakistan was played under a heavy cloud of criticism since it was the first time that the two arch-rivals were meeting in a cricket match after the heinous Pahalgam terror attack. India had responded to the terror attack by launching Operation Sindoor.
