Pakistan's Letter To ICC On Asia Cup 2025 Handshake Row Revealed: "Highest Level Of..."

The Asia Cup 2025 encounter between India and Pakistan witnessed a massive controversy as Suryakumar Yadav did not shake hands with Salman Agha at the toss. Even after India secured a 7-wicket victory, the batters walked straight back to the dressing room and did not shake hands with the Pakistan cricketers. The entire incident left Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) fuming and a demand was made to the International Cricket Council (ICC) to remove match referee Andy Pycroft for his role in the controversy. In the letter sent to ICC, PCB reportedly threatened to boycott the match against UAE if Pycroft is not removed. However, reports claim that ICC will be rejectiing PCB's demands.

Pakistan media outlet Dawn revealed the contents of the letter sent to ICC by the Pakistan cricket governing body and said that it refereed to the incident as "the highest level of offence".

"It is alarming to note that an ICC-appointed and supposedly neutral match referee opted to indulge in conduct, which clearly violates the Spirit of Cricket and MCC Laws."

"The match referee failed to discharge his responsibility: to ensure that respect was extended and maintained amongst the captains as well as between the two competing sides; and to create a positive atmosphere by his conduct and encourage the captains and participating teams to do likewise."

"In fact, the match referee's instructions to the two team captains were entirely directed towards achieving the opposite result. This misconduct violates Article 2 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Match Officials, which specifically makes it an offence for the Match Referee to conduct himself in a manner, which is contrary to the spirit of game and violates the MCC Laws."

"Given the gravity, political nature/background, and far-reaching consequences and repercussions, the misconduct has also caused disrepute to the game."

The PCB letter added that "we believe the highest level of offence has been committed".

Topics mentioned in this article

India Cricket Team Pakistan Cricket Team Suryakumar Yadav Agha Salman BCCI Pakistan Cricket Board Asia Cup 2025 Cricket