{"id":278741,"date":"2026-02-07T09:27:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T09:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/278741\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T09:27:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T09:27:16","slug":"t20-world-cup-firm-on-not-playing-india-each-game-becomes-a-must-win-for-pakistan-cricket-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/278741\/","title":{"rendered":"T20 World Cup: Firm on not playing India, each game becomes a must-win for Pakistan | Cricket News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"T20 The unquiet ones have done all the talking of late, but it has largely been off the field. Now, it\u2019s time for Pakistan to get their act right, in the middle. Not many teams have ever put themselves under as much pressure as the 2009 T20 World Cup champions have done before this edition of the tournament. Till now, they have stuck to their decision of not playing India in their group match on Feb 15. That has left them in a mustwin situation in every group game, which starts with the Netherlands at the SSC on Saturday. Such is the situation that even a washout can spell doom for Pakistan.There are some rain threats in Colombo on Saturday and the last thing Salman Agha\u2019s boys will want is the game being curtailed or washed out. \u201cWeather is not in our control, so we do not talk about it. We only think about how to win the three matches that we have,\u201d Agha said, ahead of a practice session on Friday.<\/p>\n

T20 World Cup | Suryakumar Yadav press conference – On Harshit Rana, ‘nerves’, strategy<\/p>\n

As much as Pakistan try to keep the discussion around this game, there was no running away from the recent Indo-Pak relations on and off the field that has shaken world cricket. \u201cMore than cricket we are being asked about other things, which I think is not a good thing. We are after all sportsmen and we come to talk and play cricket … We try not to let these affect us because it is better to avoid such things for yourself and for the game,\u201d Agha reasoned.However, the scars of an extremely hostile Asia Cup that took place in the UAE in Sept last year haven\u2019t healed. Queries about the non-handshake of the India and Pakistan teams and all that fol -lowed did keep cropping up dur -ing the course of the conversation and Agha felt things shouldn\u2019t have panned out that way. \u201cWe don\u2019t really feel hurt, but it\u2019s not good for the game. Growing up as a kid, I have always seen people doing what is required for the game to be improved. We too are role models and if we don\u2019t do that, kids are going to pick up the wrong things,\u201d Agha said.Back to Pakistan\u2019s prepara -tions for the World Cup, the skipper stressed that they haven\u2019t lost a series in the last six months, having won most of their games. The team, though, still has its problems in trying to fit in seniors like Babar Azam and Fakhar Zaman, who haven\u2019t fired T20Is of late. \u201cWe have come here as a team of 15 and we will try to play the best combination. If that means that a senior player like Fakhar or Babar, who have done great things over 10 years, does not fit, then we will not play him. We will play with the best team,\u201d the captain added.There\u2019s an ace up Pakistan\u2019s sleeve in the form of off-spinner Usman Tariq, who is a slinger. Australia found it very difficult to deal with him and there were talks about the legality of his action. Agha was prompt to shut it down, saying: \u201cI don\u2019t understand why we are talking about his action. In my opinion, it is a fair action and has been tested twice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The unquiet ones have done all the talking of late, but it has largely been off the field.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[143550,85,9710,46,25840,143552,105,140592,143551],"class_list":{"0":"post-278741","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-icc-t20-world-cup","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-india-vs-pakistan","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-pakistan-cricket","13":"tag-salman-agha","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-t20-world-cup","16":"tag-t20-world-cup-2026"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}