Legendary batter Sunil Gavaskar has made a stunning claim amid the controversy surrounding Pakistan's decision to opt out of their upcoming T20 World Cup 2026 match against arch-rivals India. It is worth mentioning that India and Pakistan no longer take part in cricket bilaterals due to cross-border tensions. They only face off each other during international or continental events as a result. The last bilateral series between the two sides was played in 2012-13 when Pakistan had toured India for two T20Is and three ODIs, respectively.
Since then, the two teams are often placed in same groups for the International Cricket Council (ICC) and Asian Cricket Council (ACC) events to ensure that the tournaments' commercial success remains intact until the very end.
However, Gavaskar feels that Pakistan's decision to boycott the match against India could force the ICC to put the two teams in different groups going forward.
"This could well be the time that the ICC decides to go ahead with the draw as it is, without looking to specifically club India and Pakistan in the same group," said Gavaskar on India Today.
"I know the reason why it happened. In 2007, India and Pakistan were supposed to face each other at some point but it didn't happen even once as they were in different groups and were knocked out early. Since then, the endeavour has been to have India and Pakistan in the same group."
Gavaskar also took a dig at Pakistan, saying that India no longer 'sweat over' at the possibility of facing their arch-rivals considering their recent domination.
"As far as India are concerned, they've got two points. They don't have to sweat about anything-not that they would sweat about Pakistan, given the way they have been beating them easily in recent times. We will just have to wait for a few days to actually know why the Pakistan government has taken the call that they have," he noted.
from NDTV News- Special https://ift.tt/2Oi84y0
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