A Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) official has stated that there is \u201cno assurance\u201d that India and Pakistan players will shake hands when the two sides meet during the Women\u2019s World Cup on Sunday, according to media reports. The development comes days after tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad spilled over onto the cricketing field during the Sept 9-28 Men\u2019s Asia Cup staged in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), when Indian cricketers refused to shake hands with their Pakistani counterparts during all three clashes in the tournament. The tensions had culminated in India not accepting the trophy from Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief Mohsin Naqvi, who is also chairman of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC). The tournament had seen the first cricket matches between the two sides since the military conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours in May after India had launched air strikes in Pakistan over the Pahalgam attack in occupied Kashmir. Pakistan had denied involvement, and the crisis eased following US intervention.Against this backdrop, Pakistan is kicking off its Women\u2019s World Cup campaign today by playing Bangladesh in Colombo. Pakistan will face India in the tournament on Sunday. According to a report published by BBC Sport on Wednesday, BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia told BBC Stumped \u2014 a weekly cricket show \u2014 the following: \u201cI cannot forecast anything, but our relationship with that particular hostile country is the same, there is no change in the last week.\u201d He added, \u201cIndia will play that match against Pakistan in Colombo, and all cricket protocols will be followed. I can only assure that whatever is in the Marylebone Cricket Club regulations of cricket, that will be done. \u201cWhether there will be handshakes, whether there will be hugging, I cannot assure you of anything at this moment,\u201d he said. Meanwhile, the Indian Express reported while citing BCCI sources that the Indian team had been advised by the board to avoid handshakes with Pakistan\u2019s players before they departed for Sri Lanka. The sources noted, \u201cThe team won\u2019t be shaking hands with the Pakistan team during the World Cup. The team has been informed by the BCCI bosses about this. The Indian board will stand by its players.\u201d A day earlier, Pakistan Cricket Board and Asia Cricket Council Chairman Mohsin Naqvi had refuted claims by Indian media that he had apologised to the BCCI over the trophy handover issue at Sunday\u2019s Men\u2019s Asia Cup final. The closing ceremony of the Asia Cup had descended into farce on Sunday as the Indian cricket team refused to collect the winners\u2019 trophy from the ACC chief, marking a historic low in cricketing relations between the two countries. Subsequently, Indian skipper Surya\u00adku\u00admar Yadav complained his side were denied the trophy after winning the Asia Cup. Later, Indian media alleged that Naqvi had himself refused to hand the trophy over to the Indian team. Subsequently, several Indian outlets, including IndiaToday, Financial Express and Hindustan Times, reported that Naqvi had apologised to the BCCI, but that he still refused to hand them the trophy. Responding to the media reports, he had stated, \u201cIndian media thrives on lies, not facts. Let me make it absolutely clear: I have done nothing wrong and I have never apologised to the BCCI nor will I ever do so.\u201d The PCB chairman called the claims \u201cfabricated nonsense\u201d and \u201ccheap propaganda\u201d, saying it was aimed at misleading Indian people. He slammed India for continuing to \u201cdrag politics into cricket, damaging the very spirit of the game\u201d. \u201cAs ACC chairman, I was ready to hand over the trophy that very day and I am still ready now,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they truly want it, they are welcome to come to the ACC office and collect it from me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) official has stated that there is \u201cno assurance\u201d that India and Pakistan players will shake hands…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28016,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}