Former Pakistan captain Sana Mir has responded to Indian criticism over her reference to \u201cAzad Kashmir\u201d during commentary in Pakistan\u2019s ICC Women\u2019s World Cup 2025 match against Bangladesh in Colombo. The incident took place at R Premadasa Stadium, where Mir, while talking about Pakistan all-rounder Natalia Pervaiz, initially said \u201cKashmir\u201d before correcting herself to \u201cAzad Kashmir.\u201d Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Mir clarified that her remarks were blown out of proportion and expressed concern that sports professionals were being subjected to unnecessary pressure. She emphasized that her words were never intended as a political statement, but rather part of the storytelling commentators do to highlight players\u2019 backgrounds. \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate how this has been exaggerated [\u2026] My comment about a Pakistan player\u2019s hometown was only meant to showcase the challenges she faced. There was no malice or intention to hurt anyone\u2019s sentiments,\u201d Mir wrote. She added that, as a commentator on the World Feed, her focus is on the sport and its players, sharing inspiring stories of perseverance and dedication not politics. To support her explanation, Mir shared a screenshot from ESPNcricinfo showing Natalia Pervaiz\u2019s profile listing her birthplace as \u201cBandala, Azad Jammu and Kashmir.\u201d She noted this was her source of information, although the site has since updated the entry. The clarification comes at a sensitive time in cricket relations between Pakistan and India. The men’s Asia Cup 2025 tournament saw India\u2019s men\u2019s team refuse handshakes with Pakistani players, while the trophy presentation was overshadowed by India\u2019s refusal to accept medals from ACC and PCB chief Mohsin Naqvi. With Pakistan\u2019s women playing all their matches in Sri Lanka due to PCB-BCCI tensions, the controversy around Mir\u2019s comment has further highlighted how cricket continues to be entangled with politics. Bangladesh won the match by seven wickets, leaving Pakistan struggling to stay afloat in the group stage of the Women\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Pakistan captain Sana Mir has responded to Indian criticism over her reference to \u201cAzad Kashmir\u201d during commentary in Pakistan\u2019s ICC Women\u2019s World Cup 2025…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28041,"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-28040","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\/28040","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=28040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}