Has Pakistan Ever Boycotted Asia Cup? Find Out The Facts Here

Has Pakistan ever boycotted the Asia Cup cricket tournament, which was launched in 1984? Well, it had opted out once.

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi has thrown light at an instance where it had opted out of the tournament, as she highlighted in a post that it had stayed out of the Asia Cup in the 1990s.

In a post, she said, "For the BCCI and Asia Cricket Council apologists saying that India cannot boycott the series. Here's a little bit of history: - Pakistan boycotted the 1990-91 Asia Cup because of tensions with India. - The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) decided not to participate as a protest against India's policies in Kashmir.

As a result, Pakistan did not take part, and only India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh played in that edition. India can and India must boycott any match with Pakistan. No cricket over terror."

It has to be noted that India has also boycotted the Asia Cup once. This was in the 1986 edition, due to strained relations with Sri Lanka at the time, related to the Sri Lankan Civil War.

Chaturvedi had also urged during a Rajya Sabha debate on Operation Sindoor where she asked Union Home Minister Amit Shah to direct his son, Jay Shah (Chairman of the International Cricket Council), to cancel the India-Pakistan match. "Be it Pakistan's news channels or their influencers, we've banned everything. It's time now to impose a ban on cricket as well," she asserted.

Emphasizing the emotional toll of the terror attacks, Chaturvedi questioned, "How can we tell those 26 women who got widowed after the Pahalgam attack that we want to play India-Pakistan match, we want to earn money and your family is not above money?"

The Asia Cup 2025, set to be a T20 format in preparation for the 2026 T20 World Cup (co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka), has its schedule confirmed, with the India-Pakistan clash slated for September 14 in Dubai. The teams could potentially face each other up to three times in the tournament.

While reports earlier suggested the BCCI might withdraw from the Asia Cup due to deteriorating political and diplomatic relations, the scheduled match has reignited the debate: "No cricket over terror."