Forward of the much-awaited India and Pakistan conflict at ICC World Cup 2023, former Pakistan all-rounder Abdul Razzaq made an attention-grabbing declare on the rationale why India by no means performed matches towards Pakistan from 1997.

Why India Didn’t Play Towards Pakistan After 1998

Their final encounter within the 2019 World Cup was a high-scoring affair with India reaching an enormous victory in Manchester whereas Pakistan final visited India through the 2016 T20 World Cup.

Owing to political causes, India and Pakistan stopped to tour one another and can conflict solely at ICC and Asia Cup occasions. The 2 sides first performed in 1952, when Pakistan toured India.

“We share mutual respect and friendship. There’s solely Indian group that doesn’t play towards Pakistan. From 1997-98, they didn’t play a lot towards us as a result of we have been too good, India all the time used to lose,” he mentioned.

“Now, the state of affairs has modified, we’re in 2023, however we have now to vary our considering. No group is huge or small, the efficiency on the day issues,” he added.

The 43-year-old lauded India and Pakistan for his or her performances in worldwide cricket. He additionally desires to see India and Pakistan play a bilateral collection sooner or later.

Speaking about how performances matter now relatively than a group’s identify, Razzaq mentioned that each India and Pakistani groups are good and nobody can say that the “Pakistan group is weak”.

“You see the Ashes collection, are you able to level out which group is healthier? The group which performs wins, so simple as that. Now we have to get out of this and play matches, collection towards one another,” he continued.

In ICC occasions, each India and Pakistan have performed 19 matches the place India received 14 video games and Pakistan received 4 video games. Notably, Pakistan registered its first-ever win towards India in a World Cup match through the 2021 ICC Males’s T20 World Cup.

Whereas in Asia Cup, they each performed 17 matches the place India received 9 matches out of it and have the higher hand.

Earlier than their conflict within the ICC World Cup 2023, India and Pakistan will first conflict on the Asia Cup 2023 scheduled to host by Pakistan and Sri Lanka.