Category World News

Dubai, UAE – The wide-ranging ramifications of an ongoing political standoff between India and Pakistan have led to a controversial conclusion of the archrivals’ cricket match at the Asia Cup 2025 in Dubai, where India’s captain Suryakumar Yadav confirmed that his squad opted against shaking hands with their opponents as a mark of protest.

When Sunday’s Group A fixture between the South Asian archrivals was confirmed after long deliberations from the Indian government, fans and experts had hoped that the on-field action could help cool the off-field heat.

Yadav, though, crushed all expectations by saying his team’s thumping seven-wicket win in the T20 match was a “perfect reply” to Pakistan in the wake of the intense four-day cross-border conflict that brought both countries to the brink of an all-out war in May.

“Our [Indian] government and the BCCI [Board of Control for Cricket in India] were aligned on the decision to play this match. We came here just to play the match and gave them [Pakistan] a perfect reply,” Yadav told the media shortly after the match.

What happened at the end of the India vs Pakistan match?

Yadav, who hit the winning runs for India, walked off the field alongside his batting partner, Shivam Dube, without approaching the Pakistani captain and team for the traditional post-match handshakes.

Pakistan’s players trudged off in a group and waited for the Indian squad and support staff to come out and shake hands, as is the norm at the end of cricket matches.

However, the Indian contingent only shook hands with each other before walking into their dressing room and shutting the door as the waiting Pakistan players looked on.

No handshakes between the teams. Salman Agha looked to lead Pakistan over to the India dressing room, but nothing doing. They all headed straight in #INDvPAK pic.twitter.com/0BbJtYdkAf

Why did Indian team refuse to shake hands with Pakistani players?

The Indian captain was asked to clarify his team’s actions and whether they were in contradiction with the spirit of the sport.

“A few things in life are above sportsman’s spirit,” the 35-year-old swiftly responded.

“We stand with all the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack and with their families, and dedicate this win to our brave armed forces who took part in Operation Sindoor.”

Yadav was referring to the Indian armed forces’ multiple missile attacks on six locations inside Pakistan.

India said the missiles were in response to the April 22 attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir in Pahalgam, in which 26 men were killed. An armed group called The Resistance Front (TRF), which demands independence for Kashmir, claimed responsibility for the attack, but India had alleged Pakistani involvement.

Two days later, Pakistan responded to the missile strikes by attacking military installations across its frontier with India and Indian-administered Kashmir, striking at least four facilities.

The conflict ended four days later, thanks to an internationally-brokered ceasefire.

While the exchange of aerial fire came to a halt, the diplomatic ties between the neighbours remained suspended, and the political tension spilled over into cricket when the fixture between India and Pakistan was announced by the Asian Cricket Council (ACC).

Did India break any rules by not shaking hands?

As a result, the match was played under a highly charged political climate, and when both captains did not indulge in the customary handshake at the pre-match toss, the focus swiftly shifted to the interactions between the teams.

However, Al Jazeera has learned that the match referee, Andy Pycroft, had asked Yadav and his counterpart, Agha, to skip the pre-toss ritual.

“The match referee requested both captains to not shake hands at the toss,” an official of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), requesting anonymity, told Al Jazeera after the match.

Match officials also granted India permission to skip the post-match handshakes with Pakistan, but did not inform Agha or his team, according to the source.

This resulted in an awkward-looking post-match scenario, where the Pakistani players followed Yadav off the pitch and waited for the Indians to emerge, only to watch them shut the dressing room door.

How did Pakistan respond?

Pakistan’s manager Naveed Akram Cheema lodged a protest against the Indian cricket team’s actions with Pycroft, who is an International Cricket Council (ICC) accredited match referee.

“The umpires had allowed the Indians to walk off the field without shaking hands for which the match referee apologised after the protest of our team manager,” the official said.

Additionally, Pakistan captain Agha did not speak at the post-match captain’s chat with the host broadcaster in a mark of protest.

Mike Hesson, Pakistan’s head coach, confirmed that Agha’s refusal to show up for the talk and the media briefing was a “follow-on effect” of the Indian team’s actions.

“We were ready to shake hands at the end of the game, but our opposition did not do that,” Hesson said.

“We sort of went over there to shake hands, and they had already gone into the changing room.”

Why are handshakes important in cricket, and what’s the protocol?

As per the norm in cricket, the two on-field players of the team batting second shake hands with the fielding team and the umpires before walking off.

And in what is now a common practice in all international cricket matches, the batting team then enters the ground to shake hands with their opponents.

It offers both sides to end the match on a friendly note and exchange words of encouragement.

In the same manner, both teams’ captains shake hands before the toss, which takes place 30 minutes before the start of play.

The toss is conducted by the match referee on the pitch and usually broadcast live.

Both captains and the match referee can also indulge in a pre-match chat regarding team lineups or any other matters of mutual interest for both teams.

The match referee can also meet a captain, head coach or manager of either team before the match.

What have the tournament officials said about the incident?

The move was lamented by the ACC chairman, Mohsin Naqvi, who is also the chairman of the PCB.

“Utterly disappointing to witness the lack of sportsmanship today,” Naqvi said in a post on X.

“Dragging politics into the game goes against the very spirit of sports.”

Utterly disappointing to witness the lack of sportsmanship today. Dragging politics into the game goes against the very spirit of sports. Lets hope future victories are celebrated by all teams with grace

Al Jazeera has reached out to the ACC for a comment on the revelation that both captains were asked not to shake hands at the toss.

The ACC has not yet responded to the request.

Pakistan and India are likely to meet again in the Asia Cup if both teams qualify for the Super Four stage.

India have all but qualified after two wins in two games, while Pakistan face the UAE in a must-win fixture on Wednesday.

Can US President Trump fulfil his promise of ending the war, or is the conflict proving more complex than expected?

Israeli forces have intensified their bombardment of Gaza City, levelling three residential blocks and killing at least 53 Palestinians, including 35 in Gaza City, as families continue to flee under the threat of new forced evacuation orders.

The Israeli army marked the al-Kawthar tower in Gaza’s southern Remal neighbourhood as a target before destroying the building on Sunday with a series of missile strikes less than two hours later.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said: “It was another sleepless night for those in Gaza City, with the sounds of drones, the constant hum of machines of war, and the explosive remotely detonated robots across the city.”

Gaza’s Government Media Office slammed Israel’s “systematic bombing of towers, residential buildings, schools and civilian institutions with the aim of extermination and forced displacement”.

In a statement, it argued that while Israel claimed to be targeting armed groups, “the field realities prove beyond doubt that the occupation deliberately and according to a clear methodology bombs schools, mosques, hospitals and medical centres, destroys towers and residential buildings, destroys displaced persons’ tents, and targets the headquarters of various institutions, including international institutions working in the humanitarian field.”

‘Nowhere in Gaza is safe’

As bombardments intensified, families were once again forced to flee south towards al-Mawasi, an area Israel has designated as a “safe zone” despite repeatedly attacking it.

Ahmed Awad told Al Jazeera that he had escaped northern Gaza on Saturday as “mortar shells rained down”. He described arriving at midnight to find “no water, no toilets, nothing. Families are sleeping in the open. The situation is extremely dire”.

Another displaced Palestinian, AbedAllah Aram, said his family faced a “severe shortage” of clean water. “Food is scarce, and inside these tents, people are hungry and malnourished. Winter is approaching, and we urgently need new tents. On top of that, this area cannot handle more displaced families,” he said.

From al-Mawasi, UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram told Al Jazeera that conditions are worsening daily. “Nowhere in Gaza is safe, including in this so-called humanitarian zone,” she said. “The camp is becoming more and more crowded by the day.”

She recalled meeting a woman, Seera, who had been ordered to evacuate Gaza City while pregnant. “She went into labour in Sheikh Radwan and gave birth on the side of the road while trying to find help, whilst evacuation orders were being issued for that area,” Ingram said. “She is one of so many examples of families who have come here and now are struggling to access the basics they need to survive.”

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from al-Mawasi, said displaced Palestinians there are facing an unbearable uncertainty. One man told her he had been searching for shelter for nearly a week.

“I have a large family, including my children, mother and grandmother. Not only are missiles raining down on us, but famine is devouring us too. My family has been on a constant journey of displacement for two years. We can no longer endure the ongoing genocidal war or hunger,” he said. “Above all, we have no source of income to feed our starving children. Displacement is as painful as eviscerating one’s soul out of the body.”

The enclave’s Ministry of Health reported two more deaths from malnutrition in the past 24 hours, bringing the official famine toll to 422, including 145 children.

Since the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification formally declared a famine last month, 144 Palestinians, among them 30 children, have died of hunger.

Doha summit condemns ‘barbaric’ Israel

Meanwhile, the political fallout from Israel’s strike on Hamas negotiators in Qatar last week, which killed five Hamas members and a Qatari security officer, has continued.

Izzat al-Rashq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said the “war criminal Netanyahu is attempting to shift the battle to the region, seeking to redraw the Middle East and dominate it in pursuit of mythical fantasies related to ‘Greater Israel’, which places the entire region on the brink of explosion due to his extremism and recklessness.”

He said the attack on Qatari soil was meant to “destroy the negotiation process and undermine the role of our sister state, Qatar”.

At a preparatory meeting ahead of a summit on Monday in Doha, Arab and Islamic leaders discussed ways to respond.

Reuters reported that a draft resolution seen at the meeting condemned Israel’s “genocide, ethnic cleansing, starvation, siege, and colonising activities”, warning that such actions threatened peace in the region and undermined efforts to normalise ties with Arab states.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani called Israel’s attack on Doha on September 9 “barbaric” and urged fierce and firm measures in response.

Sheikh Mohammed said that Arab nations supported “lawful measures” to protect Doha’s sovereignty and called on the international community to abandon “double standards” in dealing with Israel.

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said that “silence and inaction” had emboldened Israel to carry out crimes “with impunity”. He called on Arab and Islamic nations to hold Israel accountable for “evidenced war crimes”, including “killing civilians, starving the population and driving an entire population homeless”.

Adnan Hayajneh, a professor of international relations at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera that the regional mood had shifted. “The US has to wake up to the fact that you’ve got 2 billion Muslims around the world insulted, and it’s only the beginning. It’s not only the attack on Qatar, it is a continuation of destabilisation of the whole region,” he said.

US-Israeli relations remain strong

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that ties with the United States remained strong, despite Washington’s unease over the strike in Qatar. Hosting US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said that relations were “as strong and durable as the stones in the Western Wall”.

Rubio claimed that US President Donald Trump was “not happy” about the Israeli attack in Doha, but maintained that US-Israeli relations remained “very strong”.

Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, Jordan, said that Washington was trying to manage the fallout. “The US is surely going to do some damage control, saying that the strikes on Doha are not going to change the relationship with Israel, but some conversations will need to be had,” she said.

Meanwhile, Israeli ministers have pledged to continue pursuing Hamas leaders abroad. Minister of Energy Eli Cohen declared, “Hamas cannot sleep peacefully anywhere in the world,” including in NATO member state Turkiye.

Another minister, Ze’ev Elkin, said: “We will pursue them and settle accounts with them, wherever they are.”

Israeli media later reported that Mossad chief David Barnea had opposed the Qatar strike, fearing it would derail ceasefire negotiations. A columnist in the Israeli newspaper Maariv wrote that Barnea believed Hamas leaders “can be eliminated at any given moment”, but had warned that attacking Doha risked torpedoing a deal to release captives Hamas had taken from Israel during its attack on October 7, 2023.

Since Israel began its war on Gaza after the Hamas attack, at least 64,871 Palestinians have been killed and 164,610 injured, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.