India vs Pakistan. (Photo Credits: AFP)
India captain Suryakumar Yadav maintained the “no hand shake” policy at the toss during the T20 World Cup 2026 match against Pakistan. There were reports that Team India will continue with the policy, as per The Indian Express. Earlier, captain Suryakumar Yadav played down the issue, asking for patience.
“Wait for 24 hours (on whether there will be handshakes). We are here to play cricket, have good food and sleep,” Suryakumar said on Saturday.
“We will see about it tomorrow,” Pakistan skipper Salman Ali Agha said on Saturday. “Cricket should be played in the right spirit. My personal opinion may not matter. But cricket should be played the way it has always been meant to be played. It’s up to them to decide what to do.”
After missing out on the clash against Namibia in New Delhi due to health issues, Abhishek Sharma returned back in the Playing XI. “Abhishek Sharma comes in and Kuldeep Yadav comes in for Arshdeep Singh,” Surya said at the toss.
Earlier, the left-handed batter was replaced by Sanju Samson in the capital city. “Abhishek (Sharma) is still not fine, he will miss a game or two. Sanju (Samson) comes in, similar batter, explosive. (Jasprit) Bumrah comes in for (Mohammed) Siraj,” captain Suryakumar Yadav said at the toss then.
“Abhishek Sharma is still recovering from his illness and was unavailable for selection. The BCCI medical team is closely monitoring his progress,” the BCCI said.
Pakistan won the toss and elected to field first. “We want to bowl first. It looks a bit tacky, so we feel it will assist the bowlers for the first few overs so we want to use that. It’s a big game. We all know that. But in our group we all are very, very relaxed now. And we’re just focusing on the game and we’re very excited for this challenge. Bigger ground than SSC and the pitch is slower than SSC. But we have been playing on these kind of pitches for the last six months. So we have an idea how to play on these pitches as well. Same team for us,” Agha said.
India: Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan(w), Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Rinku Singh, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah
Pakistan: Saim Ayub, Sahibzada Farhan, Salman Agha(c), Babar Azam, Mohammad Nawaz, Usman Khan(w), Shadab Khan, Faheem Ashraf, Shaheen Afridi, Abrar Ahmed, Usman Tariq
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