Congress MP Shashi Tharoor recently came forward and talked about the Pakistan government boycotting their T20 World Cup 2026 game against team India. He gave his take on how politics should be kept away from sports.
The T20 World Cup 2026 has caught every headline of late, with the ICC removing Bangladesh from the tournament due to their refusal to travel to India for the tournament. The situation around Pakistan and its participation has been widely discussed as well.ย
Recently, the Pakistan government came forward and announced that the Pakistan cricket team will be participating in the World Cup but will not take the field on February 15 when they are slated to take on team India.ย
Over the last few years, the political tensions between India and Pakistan have been growing significantly. Speaking on the same, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor came forward and talked about how politics should be kept away from sports.ย
“It is pretty disgraceful that sport has been politicised in this way on both sides, frankly. I don’t think that Mustafizur (Bangladeshi cricketer Mustafizur Rahman) should have been denied his contract to play in Kolkata. It was most unfortunate. Intrusion of politics, I think the Bangladeshi reaction was an overreaction but it is also a reflection of the same and Pakistan is trying to show its solidarity with Bangladesh. This whole thing is spiralling out of control,โ Tharoor told ANI.ย ย
Tharoor branded the situation as a wake-up call
Furthermore, Shashi Tharoor urged the people to come to an understanding that politics should be kept away from sports and that the latter should be a means for bringing people together.ย
โI think we need to really need to come to an understanding that sports, especially a sport like Cricket which means so much to all the people, should be a means of bringing us together at least on the playing field, rather than allowing this to go on like this. I honestly think this is now a wake up call for all concerned to contact each other on an emergency basis, the ICC could be the platform for it – just say, let’s call off this nonsense…You can’t go on like this forever,โ he added.ย
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