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Pakistan to 'focus on cricket only' after Asia Cup boycott drama
Khaleej Times
|September 18, 2025
Pakistan has never been a stranger to dramatic and, sometimes, utterly tragic, off-the-field events in cricket.
The 2009 terror attack on the Sri Lankan team bus in Lahore, which robbed Pakistan of international cricket on home soil for several years, and coach Bob Woolmer's sudden death during the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies after the team had slumped to an embarrassing defeat to minnows Ireland, still send shivers down the spines of fans in the South Asian country.
Pakistan's cricket supporters and their media were on the edge again on Wednesday as the country's cricket administrators held closed-door meetings in Lahore.
But the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) was unable to decide whether to allow its team to play the make-or-break Group A Asia Cup match against the UAE in Dubai or boycott the event as a mark of protest for India's handshake snub in the big game on the same ground last Sunday.
Eventually, they took the field, but their indecision forced the organisers to delay the match by an hour, which started at 7:30 pm.
This story is from the September 18, 2025 edition of Khaleej Times.
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