Karachi: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has decided to bar Pakistani players from participating in the upcoming World Championship of Legends (WCL).
The unanimous decision was made during a special meeting of the Board of Governors (BoG), chaired by Chairman Mohsin Naqvi, in response to what the PCB described as the tournament's "double standards and biased attitude." According to the PCB, the WCL made a unilateral decision to award points to a team that deliberately refused to play a match.
The BoG stated that awarding points for a match not played is against the spirit of the game and that the championship's core purpose has been compromised by prioritizing "political interests and limited commercial goals."
The PCB, which has long advocated for keeping sports separate from politics, deemed the organizers' partiality as regrettable and dangerous for the future of international sports.
The board's statement noted that an apology from the WCL served as an "indirect admission" that the match's cancellation was not based on sporting principles but rather on pressure from a "specific nationalistic narrative."
The Board of Governors concluded that such "duplicitous and biased behavior" is intolerable and unacceptable in the world of international sports. Consequently, the PCB will not allow its players to participate in a competition that has been "tainted by the narrow-mindedness of politics."
