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<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 10 Sep 202610 Sep 2026<\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s Under-19 cricket team has found itself at the centre of an anti-migrant protest in the United Kingdom after a group of masked protesters mistook the players for asylum seekers and gathered outside the team\u2019s hotel.<\/p>\n
Protesters in Portsmouth gathered outside the Marriott on Tuesday night,\u00a0believing busloads of asylum seekers were being brought to the four-star hotel, only to be told that it was Pakistan\u2019s U-19 cricket team on tour.<\/p>\n
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British media first reported the incident, and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) confirmed that it was reviewing the team\u2019s security for the remainder of the tour and had reached out to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera reached out to the PCB but did not receive a comment.<\/p>\n
Sumair Syed, PCB\u2019s chief operating officer, told the BBC that the team reported people \u201cknocking on their doors\u201d during the incident, but the players \u201cbehaved responsibly and didn\u2019t escalate the situation\u201d.<\/p>\n
The team continued with their scheduled match the following day, which they won by 177 runs.<\/p>\n
Syed described the incident as \u201cunfortunate\u201d but said he was in contact with the ECB, which had \u201cassured us that every possible measure should be taken for the security of the escort\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the responsibility of the whole sport to ensure the safety, security and wellbeing of the visiting team,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are on it, and we are hopeful that nothing of such sort will happen in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s incident at the hotel comes in the wake of anti-migrant protests in Portsmouth earlier in the week.<\/p>\n
British media reported that hundreds of protesters clashed with the police in Portsmouth on Sunday evening after a dinghy carrying asylum seekers was brought into the UK.<\/p>\n
Reform county councillor George Madgwick, who was called to mediate the incident on Tuesday night, has repeatedly defended those protesting against the arrival of migrants in the UK.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe left are losing their minds that a handful of people went to a hotel, by accident, when they thought migrants had been bussed in. Once they discovered it was incorrect they left swiftly. Literally nothing happened,\u201d he wrote in a post on X on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Labour fixed the small boat crisis this issue would stop,\u201d Madgwick went on to say.<\/p>\n
Madgwick did not respond when contacted by Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The English cricket board confirms it is reviewing the team\u2019s security for the remainder of the tour. Published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":887009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,2057,19931,15299,51184,588,85,3586],"class_list":["post-887008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-europe","tag-migration","tag-pakistan","tag-refugees","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/887009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}