Pakistan on Saturday cancelled their pre-match press conference ahead of their second encounter with India in the men\u2019s Asia Cup tomorrow, according to a statement by the Asian Cricket Council (ACC).<\/p>\n
\u201cPakistan will not be holding their pre-match press conference today,\u201d ACC said in a short statement.<\/p>\n
Andy Pycroft will be officiating the match as the referee again after last week\u2019s controversy.<\/p>\n
A senior Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) official confirmed to Dawn.com that the board had moved on after Pycroft\u2019s \u2018apology\u2019 and had no issue with his appointment for the Pakistan-India match.<\/p>\n
The Group A clash between the fierce rivals last Sunday ended on a bitter note when Indian players refused to shake hands with their opponents.<\/p>\n
It was the first meeting between the regional neighbours since a four-day conflict in May left more than 70 people dead.<\/p>\n
While the match itself passed without incident, there was no shaking of hands between the captains at the toss or among the players at the end.<\/p>\n
Then, at the post-match ceremony, Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav seemingly \u2018politicised\u2019 the victory by bringing up the Pahalgam terrorist attack in India-occupied Kashmir, over which the two countries fought a four-day military conflict in May, saying the victory was \u201ca perfect gift\u201d for his country.<\/p>\n
PCB called for match referee Andy Pycroft\u2019s immediate removal for a code of conduct \u201cviolation\u201d and considered withdrawing from the tournament before going ahead with Wednesday\u2019s match. The board alleged that Pycroft told Pakistan skipper Salman Ali Agha not to shake hands with Indian counterpart Yadav before the match.<\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s last group game \u2014 which they won easily against the United Arab Emirates \u2014 was delayed for an hour due to the stand-off before the matter was resolved with Pycroft\u2019s apology.<\/p>\n
Indian media have reported that the team plans to stick to its no-handshake policy for Sunday\u2019s clash.<\/p>\n
India won all three of their group games, narrowly edging out a brave Oman by 21 runs in Abu Dhabi on Friday, as well as beating Pakistan by seven and the UAE by nine wickets respectively.<\/p>\n
Ramiz Raja says Pakistan need to \u2018reset\u2019 strategy
\nFormer PCB chairperson Ramiz Raja said Pakistan \u201cneed to reset their strategy as it\u2019s not working out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking on Geo News programme Naya Pakistan, \u201cThis strategy, which is akin to a sparkler that fizzles out quickly, is not working out at all,\u201d the former Pakistan men\u2019s captain said.<\/p>\n
The team needs to get to a 150+ score first, Ramiz said, adding that the over-reliance on all-rounders was not the way to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Saim Ayub or Hassan Nawaz are critical players and if they fire tomorrow, then I see Pakistan competing with India,\u201d Ramiz said.<\/p>\n
He also said that the dot-ball percentage needed to go down for the Green Shirts.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the Indian team\u2019s refusal to shake hands, he said, \u201cWho resorts to things like this in this day and age?\u201d<\/p>\n
PCB chairperson Mohsin Naqvi also met the team ahead of the Pakistan-India clash in Dubai.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan on Saturday cancelled their pre-match press conference ahead of their second encounter with India in the men\u2019s Asia Cup tomorrow, according to a statement by the Asian Cricket Council (ACC). \u201cPakistan will not be holding their pre-match press conference today,\u201d ACC said in a short statement. Andy Pycroft will be officiating the match as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12128,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12129,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12127\/revisions\/12129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}