Pakistan on Sunday announced that it would take part in all matches of the T20 World Cup 2026, except the one against India.
The decision was announced by the Shehbaz Sharif-led Pakistan government, which has granted permission to its cricket team to travel to Sri Lanka for the tournament.
However, it did not offer a reason for the boycott of the February 15 match against India.
This comes after a January 26 meeting between Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman, Mohsin Naqvi, and Islamabad PM Shehbaz Sharif, which had postponed the decision at the time.
Naqvi had said earlier that despite announcing their 15-member World Cup squad on January 25, the final decision to play or boycott the match against India—or the tournament as a whole—would be taken by the government.
The uncertainty around Pakistan's participation in the T20 World Cup this year came after it decided to show solidarity with Bangladesh. The International Cricket Council (ICC) had replaced the Dhaka team with Scotland in the tournament due to their refusal to play matches in India over political tensions.
Notably, before the swap with Scotland, the ICC had also rejected the Bangladesh Cricket Board's (BCB) request for relocating the India-based matches.
However, Pakistan's situation is quite different from that of Bangladesh. This is because unlike Bangladesh, the Pakistan team was already scheduled beforehand to play all their matches in Sri Lanka due to the political tensions between the two nations.
Pakistan are in Group A of the T20 World Cup, which includes India, Namibia, Netherlands and the USA.
They will play their first match against Netherlands on February 7, the opening day of the tournament, then the USA on February 10, skip the India match as per the present decision, and then take on Namibia on February 18. The Pakistan team will also be forced to forfeit two points from their game against India due to the boycott.
According to clause Clause 16.10.7 of the ICC's Playing Conditions, Pakistan's net run rate will also be affected by the forfeiture, but India's will remain unaffected.
This clause states that in the event of a forfeit, "the net run rate of the defaulting team shall be affected in that the full 20 overs of the defaulting team's innings in such forfeited match shall be taken into account in calculating the average runs per over of the defaulting team over the course of the relevant portion of the competition".