As anticipated, the political masters of Pakistan have finally directed its national cricket team to lift the boycott and play India on 15 February, 2026, as scheduled in Colombo . The Masters must've thought the money at stake is too lucrative to continue indulging in such kind of grumpy politics. Of course, they had imposed some pre-conditions that included making the 'handshake' a mandatory protocol, but the ICC looked the other way. So, the PCB takes it as protecting the 'spirit of cricket'. The Indian cricket board , the sponsors, the TV channels and millions of fans who do not necessarily mix patriotism with sports, if it's cricket in particular, must be deliriously ecstatic that all the revenues and hype and excitement shall be there for harvest thr oughout the ICC Men's T20 World Cup-2026 , co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka . Most of the Indians fans must also be ecstatic to have their heroes go on vanquishing the enemy neighbor and humiliating t...
Photo: espncricinfo.com The headline above is not an allegation, it’s only an observation based on hard facts. However, this observation reflects badly on the umpiring standards in the biggest cricket event of the world. We had recently seen ludicrous umpiring errors in Indian Premiere League-2019. ICC Cricket World Cup can hardly be compared with the former, and we fervently hope that standards would improve as this was just the first week of the tournament. It all happened in the 10 th match of the ICC Cricket World Cup-2019 at Trent Bridge, England between Australia and West Indies. Winning the toss West Indies put Australia into bat, reduced them to 79 for 5 thanks to fiery spells by Thomas and Cortrell that reminded us of the likes of Malcolm Marshall & Co of yore, and as was their wont, West Indies let go allowing the Aussies to amass 288. Still, it was not an impossible target, and West Indies seemed to be cruising nicely with Hope and Heitmyer going great guns....