ICC T20 World Cup 2026 | Team to travel to Colombo, says Suryakumar Yadav despite Pakistan boycott

India captain Suryakumar Yadav toed the diplomatic line, saying his team would travel to Colombo as planned.

Mumbai: The build-up to the ICC T20 World Cup, scheduled to start on Saturday, has been turbulent to put it mildly. After an irked Bangladesh refused to travel to India, citing security reasons, forcing the governing body to replace them with Scotland, the Pakistan government dropped a bombshell by denying permission for its cricket team to play the marquee clash against India in Colombo on February 15.

Although the Pakistan Cricket Board, whose chairman Mohsin Naqvi is also the Interior Minister, has officially not conveyed its boycott decision to the ICC, the tweet from the Pakistan government last Sunday, reiterated on Thursday by their PM Shehbaz Sharif, has further stirred the pot.

India captain Suryakumar Yadav, who triggered a controversy when he refused to shake hands with his Pakistani counterpart Salman Ali Agha during the toss ceremony of the Asia Cup last September and even suggested there is no ‘rivalry’ between the two nations given how dominant the Men In Blue have been in recent years, toed the diplomatic line, saying his team would travel to Colombo as planned. 

“Our mindset is pretty clear. We have not said no (to playing against Pakistan). They have. The ICC has given the fixture. The BCCI and the governments decided on a neutral venue if the two teams have to play each other. Our flight is booked to Colombo. We are going there, the rest we will see,” a smiling Suryakumar said during the Captain’s Day press conference at the BCCI headquarters at the Wankhede Stadium on Thursday.

“We will play the match on Feb 7 (against the USA). Then we will go to Delhi (for the Namibia game). After that, we will travel to Colombo,” asserted the Indian skipper when probed about the mood in the Indian team, given all the outside noise regarding the fixture.

When asked for his opinion on the boycott and the recent flare-ups, Suryakumar felt those were beyond his control. “Their (Pakistan's) decision is not in my control. I wish I could make their decision. But then it’s their call. We have been told that we have to play a game on the 15th. We played the Asia Cup, I think we played them three times and we played some good cricket against them. We won, we were very happy and similarly, if we get an opportunity again in Colombo, we will definitely play again.”

Moving on from the Pakistan issue, Suryakumar said the team's goal is to continue playing fearless cricket and not be overawed by the occasion of the World Cup. “I think we have been playing some good brand of cricket for the last 2-3 years. We’ve been doing it for a while now, but the difference now is that our thinking has changed. Earlier, we used to play bilateral series one way and ICC events another. But now, be it the Asia Cup or an ICC event or bilateral, we play them all in the same fashion. 

“Last time in 2024 (at the T20 World Cup), I didn’t feel any difference in how we played the tournament in comparison to the build-up. Similarly, whatever cricket we’ve been playing in the last one year, we will try to play in ICC events. If we play well, we will get good results.”