Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chair Mohsin Naqvi says a final verdict on whether the men’s side appear at next month’s T20 World Cup will land “either on Friday or next Monday”. The comment followed his meeting with Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, in Islamabad on Monday.
“Had a productive meeting with the Prime Minister … Shehbaz Sharif,” Naqvi posted on X. “Briefed him on the ICC matter, and he directed that we resolve it while keeping all options on the table. It was agreed that the final decision [on participation] will be taken either on Friday or next Monday.”
The clock is ticking. Pakistan are pencilled in for the tournament opener against the Netherlands in Colombo on 7 February, so any call made after the weekend would leave just four days for the squad to travel, acclimatise and settle into match mode. Yet insiders insist the board still feels it has room to manoeuvre.
Options, not ultimatums
Despite the chatter, a blanket boycott is not the only scenario on Naqvi’s desk. One route under discussion is to play the Sri Lanka-based group matches but refuse to face India in Ahmedabad on 15 February as a pointed protest. Selection chief Aaqib Javed has already named a 15-man squad, adding that the government, not the board, will have the final say on “the nature of Pakistan’s participation”.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has been asked whether it has received any formal notice from Lahore; officials have, so far, declined to comment publicly.
Why the brinkmanship?
Tension spiked when the ICC ejected Bangladesh from the 20-team event after the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) pulled out of matches scheduled in India and sought neutral venues. Scotland were parachuted in as replacements. Naqvi reacted sharply, accusing the ICC of one-rule-for-India, another-for-everyone-else.
“You can’t have double standards,” he said on Saturday. “You can’t say for one country [India] they can do whatever they want and for the others to have to do the complete opposite. That’s why we’ve taken this stand, and made clear Bangladesh have had an injustice done to them. They should play in the World Cup, they are a major stakeholder in cricket.”
Pakistan, who were always due to base themselves entirely in Sri Lanka for security reasons, supported Bangladesh’s request for the same arrangement. At last week’s board meeting the PCB was the only full member to vote in favour of the BCB. The rest fell in behind India.
Practical headaches
With the tournament jointly hosted by India and Sri Lanka, fixtures have been jigsawed across two countries. Pakistan’s plan to stay exclusively on the island removed the prospect of crossing the Wagah border. Bangladesh hoped for a similar carve-out, citing concerns after the BCCI instructed Kolkata Knight Riders to release Mustafizur Rahman from the 2026 IPL on 3 January. The ICC said no, leading to the stand-off.
From a logistics standpoint, any late withdrawal by Pakistan would create gaps in broadcast schedules, venue bookings and ticket allocations—headaches the ICC will be desperate to avoid. A partial boycott (skipping only the India clash) would be trickier still; reshuffling one group fixture without triggering a domino effect is easier said than done.
What the players think
The squad itself has remained silent in public, though one senior player, speaking off the record, admitted the uncertainty is “unsettling but out of our hands”. Coaching staff have kept training ticking over at the National High-Performance Centre in Lahore, working on the assumption that the opener goes ahead.
Outlook
Reading the mood music in Lahore, the likeliest outcome still feels like participation, albeit with heavy caveats and perhaps a very late arrival in Colombo. Even so, Naqvi’s rhetoric has placed the PCB on a limb; climbing back without some visible concession from the ICC could raise domestic eyebrows. Conversely, a full boycott would deny an in-form side a realistic tilt at a global title and risk considerable financial penalties.
Either way, the game’s administrators have given themselves the narrowest of run-ups. By the close of business on 2 February, fans, broadcasters and, most importantly, Pakistan’s players should finally know whether they are in or out of the 2026 T20 World Cup.
