Pakistan's foreign ministry to evaluate team's participation in ODI World Cup in India: Spokesperson

Pakistan's foreign ministry is looking into all aspects of the team's participation in the Men's ODI World Cup later this year in India. It comes as a first step towards taking up long-pending issues from Pakistan's front, which also resulted in the delay of the schedule announcement for the mega event.

As made clear by the outgoing Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief, Najam Sethi, the team's participation is subject to their government's approval.

Following the release of the draft schedule by the ICC last week that required every participating team's final approval before going public, PCB wrote to the governing body expressing disapproval over venues for a couple of matches.

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Per the draft, Pakistan will play Australia in Bengaluru on October 20 and Afghanistan in Chennai on October 23, but have requested to swap venues for these two games. Though both the ICC and the host BCCI denied their request.

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Meanwhile, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch - a spokesperson for the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said politics and sports should be kept separate. She also expressed her disappointment over BCCI's stance of not travelling to Pakistan for the Asia Cup - the schedule of which is now modified.

Mumtaz added the foreign office is evaluating the security situation for Pakistani cricketers and will offer their view in due course.

"Regarding cricket, Pakistan is of the view that politics should not be mixed with sports. India's policy of not playing cricket in Pakistan is disappointing. We are observing and evaluating all aspects relating to our participation in the World Cup, including the security situation for Pakistani cricketers, and we will offer our views to PCB in due course," Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said.

Asia Cup 2023 venue changed

Upon granting hosting rights for this year's Asia Cup to Pakistan, the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), chaired by Jay Shah - also BCCI's secretary, announced India will not travel to Pakistan for the same owing to long-standing political tensions between two countries.

As a result, Sri Lanka will now co-host the multi-team tournament with Pakistan from August 31 to September 17. While the original host Pakistan will host only four matches, the island nation will host remaining nine games, including all of India's matches.

Upset over last-minute snatching of hosting rights, PCB also threatened to boycott the upcoming World Cup in India.

Meanwhile, the schedule for cricket's biggest carnival this year is expected to be out by next week.

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