Kamal Ghorui
Former India cricketer Atul Wassan has strongly reacted to comments made by Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Mohsin Naqvi about Pakistan possibly staying away from the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.Wassan believes that dragging politics into cricket only harms the game.
“I think this is just a bravado, and it’s foolish bravado at best to just eyeball ICC and blackmail the whole cricketing world order. I think what they are doing now is just using cricket and their collateral damage players. Who will face the collateral damage? Players will suffer. They don’t know anything because they are political capital, so their work will go on. You made cricket an issue and raised your moustache. Because they think that it will be a big brownie point for them see that we have supported Bangladesh,” Wassan told ANI.His comments come after Mohsin Naqvi suggested that Pakistan could rethink its participation in the T20 World Cup, which will be held in India and Sri Lanka. The statement followed the ICC’s decision to remove Bangladesh from the tournament.Naqvi openly backed Bangladesh and accused the ICC of unfair treatment. He said Bangladesh was wrongly pushed out and claimed the global body was following double standards.“Bangladesh has been treated unfairly. I said the same in the board meeting of the International Cricket Council (ICC). You cannot have double standards, where one country can make whatever decision whenever and do the total opposite for another country. That is why we have taken the stand that Bangladesh is being treated unfairly and should be allowed to play the World Cup in any case. They are a major stakeholder, and this injustice should not be done,” Naqvi said.The ICC confirmed on Saturday that Scotland will replace Bangladesh in the 2026 T20 World Cup. Bangladesh were dropped after the BCB refused to take part in the tournament as per the published schedule. Scotland will now play in Group C along with England, Italy, Nepal and the West Indies.
