Indian cricket star calls for Pakistan World Cup boycott

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Indian cricket star calls for Pakistan World Cup boycott
Harbhajan has called for India to boycott their World Cup game against Pakistan in June.

New Delhi - India would at the very least forfeit the match points if they boycott the group game to be played in Manchester

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Published: Tue 19 Feb 2019, 3:43 PM

Last updated: Tue 19 Feb 2019, 7:02 PM

Spin star Harbhajan Singh has called for India to boycott their World Cup game against Pakistan in June in protest at a Kashmir attack which left more than 40 paramilitaries dead.
"There is no need for any relations with Pakistan, let alone cricket," Harbhajan said.
"Don't play the World Cup match with Pakistan on June 16 - country comes first for all of us and we are all standing with our forces," added the 38-year-old, who played his last Test in 2015 but is still an Indian Premier League regular.
"This attack was unbelievably shocking," said Harbhajan, whose 417 Test wickets are the second highest for an off-spinner. Pakistan has denied any role in the attack.
India, one of the World Cup favourites, would at the very least forfeit the match points if they boycott the group game to be played in Manchester. But Harbhajan said this would not matter.
"I don't care about losing points as the Indian team is powerful enough to win the World Cup without playing Pakistan," Singh told the Aaj Tak Hindi news channel late on Monday.
International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive David Richardson expressed sympathy over the attack in Kashmir last Thursday, which saw a suicide bomber ram an explosives-laden car into a military convoy.
He added he was confident the game - one of the showpiece fixtures of this year's World Cup in England and Wales - would still go ahead.
"There's no indication that any of the matches will not be played," Richardson told AFP at a 100 Days to the World Cup event in London on Tuesday.
"Obviously, our thoughts are with the people that were impacted by the incident."
The former South Africa wicketkeeper added that cricket "has a wonderful ability to bring people together, unify communities, and hopefully it can play a huge role along those lines in this case as well."


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