KEY TAKEAWAYS:
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BCCI’s handshake ban has held firm across every India–Pakistanfixture since the 2025 Pahalgam terror attack triggered the policy.
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India face Pakistan on September 5 in Dubai, having already stuck to the protocol through multiple senior and age-group tournaments.
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Head coach Amol Muzumdar sidestepped questions on India’s no-handshake policy ahead of the Pakistan clash at Women’s Asia Cup 2026.
Will India and Pakistan players shake hands ahead of Women’s Asia Cup 2026 clash?
Cricket fans know the drill by now that whenever India and Pakistan share a field, the question isn’t really about who wins anymore; it’s whether the players will even shake hands.
That debate has resurfaced ahead of the Women’s Asia Cup 2026, and head coach Amol Muzumdar isn’t giving much away just yet.
Speaking at a press conference on the eve of India’s campaign opener, Muzumdar was asked directly whether the team would stick to BCCI’s now-familiar no-handshake stance when facing Pakistan.
He wasn’t interested in going there just yet, choosing instead to keep the focus squarely on cricket.
“Look, we try to play the best cricket on the ground and off-the-field stuff, we don’t focus on it. We try to play the best cricket that we know on that particular day and we will speak about this when we play that game. But at the moment, we are focusing on tomorrow’s game. One game at a time,” Muzumdar said in the pre-match press conference.
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How did the no-handshake policy between India and Pakistan begin and spread across formats?
During the 2025 Men’s Asia Cup, the BCCI first introduced the no-handshake protocol, as a direct response to the Pahalgam terror attack of April 22, 2025.
Under Suryakumar Yadav’s captaincy, the Indian men’s team avoided any handshakes with Salman Ali Agha’s Pakistan side across all three meetings that tournament, right through to the final.
What started as a one-off stance during that tournament has since become something of a standard practice across Indian cricket, cutting across age groups, genders and formats.
The women’s team first held the line during their World Cup fixture against Pakistan in Colombo back in October 2025, and Indian players followed suit again at the Men’s Rising Stars Asia Cup that November.
The policy carried through both India-Pakistan meetings at the Under-19 Asia Cup in December 2025, and neither side exchanged handshakes during their Under-19 World Cup clash or at the Men’s T20 World Cup in February 2026. Most recently, Harmanpreet Kaur’s side kept the streak alive in June 2026, avoiding handshakes with Pakistan’s captain and players during their Women’s T20 World Cup encounter in Birmingham.
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India vs Pakistan women’s head-to-head record before Asia Cup 2026 clash
India dominate the overall rivalry, particularly in the 50-over format.
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