The International Cricket Council (ICC) has allegedly reached out to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) through a letter and emails, highlighting several infractions during the match against the UAE on September 17.
The breaches involved filming inside the stadium on match day and sharing the footage on PCB’s official social media platforms. These actions have displeased the ICC, which is expected to take action against the Pakistan board. The ICC was also not informed about PCB’s plans for the recorded footage.
News sources report that Pakistan violated rules by allowing their media manager to film a meeting between match referee Andy Pycroft, head coach Mike Hesson, and captain Salman Ali Agha before the toss. The ICC had explicitly stated that media managers were not permitted to attend such meetings.
The match against the UAE was postponed by an hour on Wednesday after Pakistan objected to the ICC’s decision not to remove match referee Pycroft from their games.
The controversy originated after the September 14 match when the Indian team refused handshakes with Pakistan players, protesting the Pahalgam attacks. Match referee Andy Pycroft then stopped the captains from exchanging handshakes, a move that drew significant criticism from the PCB, which also skipped the post-match presentation in protest.
Pakistan agreed to play the match following talks between the Asian Cricket Council, the ICC, and Pycroft.
The ICC also took issue with a PCB press release claiming Pycroft had “apologised,” when he had only expressed regret over a miscommunication.
PCB’s release stated that Pycroft apologised to the manager and captain of the Pakistan team, referring to the incident as a miscommunication. The International Cricket Council (ICC) has also expressed its readiness to look into any possible breaches of the Code of Conduct during the match.
