Pakistan have, once again, binned their scheduled pre-match press conference – this time on the eve of Sunday’s Super Fours meeting with India in Dubai. The Asian Cricket Council’s itinerary had a player or coach pencilled in for media duties at 6pm local time on Saturday, immediately before a three-hour training block at the ICC Academy. Training is still expected to go ahead; the microphones, apparently, are not.
No official explanation has surfaced. It is the second straight fixture where Pakistan have avoided formal media engagement. They did the same before a must-win outing against the UAE, when the fallout from the “handshake saga” with match referee Andy Pycroft was at full tilt.
Pycroft, incidentally, keeps his post for Sunday’s game. Late last week the ICC brokered a sit-down involving the referee, Pakistan’s coach, captain and team management. According to the PCB, Pycroft “offered his regrets” over events at the toss against India, when he told Salman Ali Agha there would be no handshake with Suryakumar Yadav. Pakistan viewed that instruction as a failure to uphold the ICC Code of Conduct and demanded Pycroft’s “immediate removal” from the tournament.
A short, muted video of the meeting appeared on PCB channels – no sound, just handshakes and half-smiles – accompanied by a line stating that Pycroft had apologised. The ICC was unimpressed, firing an email that described the recording as a breach of protocol inside the Players and Match Officials Area (PMOA). There is, so far, no public sign the PCB has replied.
India, for their part, are also skipping the standard pre-match presser on Saturday. With only a single rest day after beating Oman on Friday night, they covered the bases in an embargoed session immediately after that match – standard practice when turnaround times are tight.
Sunday marks the first Super Fours assignment for both sides, and even by Indo-Pak standards the build-up feels scratchy rather than fiery. The cricket remains centre stage; the conversation around it is taking a back seat, willingly or otherwise.
More as it comes…
