Pakistan will seek advice from their government if they reach the knockout phase of the T20 World Cup and meet arch-rivals India, captain Salman Agha said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The tournament has been marred by an acrimonious political buildup after Bangladesh were kicked out and Pakistan refused to face co-hosts India in their Group A match.<\/p>\n
However, a semi-final or final showdown between the uneasy South Asian neighbours is still a possibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe India game is not in our control. It was the government\u2019s decision and if we have to play them in the semi-final or the final, we will go back to them and act on their advice,\u201d Agha told reporters in Colombo.<\/p>\n
Bangladesh refused to play in India, citing security concerns, as relations soured and were kicked out of Group C by the International Cricket Council (ICC), to be replaced by Scotland.<\/p>\n
Pakistan backed Bangladesh\u2019s plea to have their games moved to Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n
The government in Islamabad cleared the national team to take part but ordered them not to play in the marquee group match against India on February 15.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sad Bangladesh are not here. They have a very good side. Hopefully, they will support us,\u201d Agha said.<\/p>\n
Pakistan and India have not played bilateral cricket for more than a decade, and meet only in multinational events.<\/p>\n
They will face Namibia, the Netherlands and the United States in the group stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited to play in this tournament. We lost to USA in the last World Cup and we are determined to put that disappointment behind us and put a few things right,\u201d Agha said.<\/p>\n
Pakistan will not only lose two points for forfeiting their India match but will also take a big hit to their net run rate.<\/p>\n
Even losing one of their group games to bad weather could make it difficult for Pakistan to qualify.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know the margin for error is small, but we can\u2019t control the weather.<\/p>\n
We are here to play good cricket and we\u2019re not bothered about the conditions,\u201d Agha said.<\/p>\n
Pakistan, the 2009 champions, arrive after a 3-0 whitewash of Australia at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been playing really good cricket. We haven\u2019t lost a series since the Asia Cup last year. Everything is coming along nicely and we\u2019re confident of doing well,\u201d Agha said.<\/p>\n
All of Pakistan\u2019s games will be played in Sri Lanka, where they toured in January.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery happy to play in Sri Lanka \u2014 it\u2019s a second home for me. This is my sixth visit, we know the conditions and we get a lot of support,\u201d Agha said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan will seek advice from their government if they reach the knockout phase of the T20 World Cup and meet arch-rivals India, captain Salman Agha said on Thursday. The tournament has been marred by an acrimonious political buildup after Bangladesh were kicked out and Pakistan refused to face co-hosts India in their Group A match. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15744,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15743","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\/15743","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=15743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15745,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15743\/revisions\/15745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}