Ahead of the high voltage India vs Pakistan final on Sunday, the Men in Green captain Salman Ali Agha brought up the handshake row once again, saying that since he started playing competitive cricket, he had never seen a match end without a handshake, adding that it sets a bad precedence for cricket.
“Have played competitive cricket since 2007. Never seen a game go without a handshake. It is not good for cricket. Even in worse times, players have shaken hands,” Agha said in the press conference on Saturday.
The controversy around the handshake erupted on September 14 in the first of the 3 meetings in the Asia Cup between India and Pakistan when India skipper Suryakumar Yadav did not shake hands with Agha at the toss. The snub continued after the match as well when after winning the match, the India players went straight off the field and into the dressing room, forgoing the customary end of the match handshakes. In protest, Agha boycotted the presentation ceremony and also did not turn up for the post-match press conference.
The two teams were facing each other in a cricket match for the first time since the Pahalgam terrorist attack earlier this year, which led to 26 Indians being killed by Pakistan-backed terrorists. India had retaliated with Operation Sindoor.
In his post-match chat with the broadcasters, Yadav had said: “This is the perfect occasion (to state that) we stand by the victims of the families of Pahalgam terror attack. We express our solidarity. Want to dedicate the win to all our armed forces who showed a lot of bravery. Hope they continue to inspire us all and we give them more reasons on the ground whenever we get an opportunity to put a smile on their face.”
A day after, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Mohsin Naqvi, through an X post that he later deleted, had said that they have lodged a formal complaint against match referee Andy Pycroft with the ICC as the official had requested the captains “not to shake hands during the toss” of the India-Pakistan encounter. Sources in the Indian team had said no such instruction was conveyed to them by the match referee.
Pakistan had also threatened to boycott their must-win group stage match against UAE too if Pycroft was not removed but ultimately cooler heads prevailed and Pakistan played the match with Pycroft as the match referee, winning and setting up a match with India in the Super 4s. In that match also, Surya and the Indian team refused to shake Pakistan players’ hands.
The post‘Even in worse times, players have shaken hands’: Pakistan captain Salman Ali Agha raises handshake issue again ahead of Asia Cup final vs India | Cricket News appeared first on Indian Express
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