Islamabad:
During the height of military tension between Pakistan and India in February 1987, President General Zia-ul-Haq traveled to India to watch the Test match on 21 February.
He sent a very serious message to the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that if there was a military incident, the situation could worsen and a nuclear conflict would occur.
The visit worked and the Indian troops withdrew from the borders. After the Kargil conflict of 1999, Pakistan and India again started bilateral crises despite strong opposition from Indian extremists.
Between 2004 and 2007, the two countries used mutual cricket tours to build trust.
In 2011, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited his Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Gilani to Mohali to watch the World Cup semi-final.
Now coming to 2026, Pakistan’s decision not to play the high-voltage T20 World Cup match against India on February 15 in Colombo has shown that bilateral relations have reached an all-time low.
For decades cricket has acted as a diplomatic ‘safety valve’. Cricket was a rare medium of communication when official negotiations were frozen.
However, now this window is completely closed. Crisis diplomacy has been buried.
Be it on the field or off, Pakistan will not make concessions to India anymore. Officials said the immediate reason for the decision was the ICC’s decision to exclude Bangladesh from the World Cup, which was widely viewed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
However, Pakistan feels that ever since Modi came to power in 2014, there has been a deliberate attempt to isolate it at all levels, including sports.
Abdul Basit, Pakistan’s former ambassador to India, blamed the collapse of cricket diplomacy on India, which refuses to engage in meaningful dialogue, especially on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.
