While the government has decided not to field the ICC T20 World Cup 2026 group match against India on February 15 in Colombo, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has announced a new squad for the Women’s Rising Stars Asia Cup on February 15 in Bangkok, Thailand, where Pakistan will face India.
Like the T20 World Cup 2026, the India vs Pakistan match is also to be played in the Women’s Rising Stars Asia Cup. PCB has announced its entire team before the tournament and it is expected that these two teams will face each other as per the schedule.
Pakistan is fully prepared to compete with India
Noteworthy is the fact that the PCB announced the women’s squad for the Rising Stars Asia Cup on the same day that the government announced that they would not participate in the match against India in Colombo on February 15. In a press release, the PCB said that they have been placed in the same group as India, adding that the game will take place on February 15 at 2pm local time or 12:30am IST. For this, PCB announced the squad for the Women’s ‘A’ team on 1 February.
Pakistan ‘A’ has been placed in Group A along with India ‘A’, UAE and Nepal, while Group B includes Bangladesh ‘A’, Sri Lanka ‘A’, Malaysia and hosts Thailand. PCB informed in its official press release that the top two teams of each group will play the semi-finals after playing three games each.
PCB issued an official statement
The date of the team’s announcement made their decision to ‘boycott’ all the more interesting. The same day, the country’s government instructed the men’s national cricket team to boycott the highly anticipated match in Colombo.
The government wrote on its official social media account, “The Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has approved the Pakistan cricket team to participate in the ICC World T20 2026; however, the Pakistan cricket team will not take the field in the match against India on 15 February 2026.”
Like the men’s cricket team, will the women’s team also boycott the match with India? No such indications have been found so far. According to ESPNcricinfo, Pakistan Women’s A team has not received any instructions yet regarding the fate of this game against India A. Their preparations for the tournament are going normally.
Why the hypocrisy?
The Rising Stars Asia Cup is organized by the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) and the ACC is headed by Mohsin Naqvi, who is also the PCB chief. Naqvi is believed to be a strong influence behind the government’s decision to boycott India’s matches in the T20 World Cup 2026. They are set to boycott the match to show protest against the ICC’s decision to expel Bangladesh from the tournament.
If, out of patriotism, Pakistan wants to boycott their clash with India for the T20 World Cup 2026 match, then why are they preparing to face the rival country? Rising Stars Asia Cup? The question remains.
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