Pakistan Champions have officially withdrawn from WCL 2026 after the PCB’s conditions for issuing player NOCs were rejected by organisers.
The PCB wanted a written apology and a handshake from Indian players over India Champions’ refusal to face Pakistan twice at WCL 2025.
The scheduled October 10 India-Pakistan clash in Dubai will no longer take place.
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The standoff between the PCB and World Championship of Legends organisers has finally reached its conclusion, and not in Pakistan’s favour.
According to a report by journalist Abhishek Tripathi, the PCB had put a specific condition before WCL organisers, demanding that Indian players issue a written apology for not taking the field last year, alongside a handshake between the two sets of players.
The WCL management accepted the PCB’s commercial terms but rejected the apology and handshake conditions outright. With no agreement reached, Pakistan Champions have now officially withdrawn from the tournament entirely.
That means the marquee India-Pakistan fixture scheduled for October 10 in Dubai will not take place at all this season, a second straight edition in which the two sides have failed to meet on the field.
No. Pakistan Champions have been ruled out of the tournament after the PCB and WCL management failed to agree on terms for issuing player NOCs.
Pakistan Champions were part of the original seven-team lineup for WCL 2026, alongside India, Australia, England, South Africa, West Indies and debutants Bangladesh. They were due to face Bangladesh Champions in Sharjah on October 3, a fixture that was first postponed and then cancelled entirely once the NOC dispute remained unresolved.
According to multiple reports, the PCB had agreed in principle to issue the NOC, but only if the WCL management accepted its conditions regarding India’s conduct. With those conditions rejected, the PCB has not released its players, and Pakistan’s participation in this season’s tournament is now over.
Mohsin Naqvi Pakistan PCB chairman
With Pakistan now out of the competition, organisers will need to reshuffle the schedule or redesign the group stage entirely to account for the gap left by their withdrawal.
The root of the issue goes back to WCL 2025 in England. India Champions refused to play Pakistan Champions on two separate occasions that season, including a scheduled semi-final, citing the strained political relations between the two countries following the Pahalgam terror attack.
Organisers responded by awarding both sides a point each for the forfeited league match, a call the PCB rejected outright, describing it as “tainted with hypocrisy and bias.” Pakistan Champions still went on to reach the final by walkover after the semi-final no-show, only to lose to South Africa Champions by nine wickets at Edgbaston.
In the aftermath, the PCB formalised its position with a blanket ban, arguing that the WCL’s talk of “peace through sport” didn’t match how selectively that principle was applied when it mattered. Heading into this season, the PCB softened that stance only slightly, agreeing to issue the NOC on the condition that Indian players formally apologise and agree to a handshake this time around.
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That demand was always going to be a tough ask for organisers to accept, given it would have required India’s players to publicly concede fault over a decision rooted in national sentiment following a terror attack.
With the WCL unwilling to impose that condition on India Champions, the standoff has ended exactly where Pakistan’s original boycott threat suggested it might, with Pakistan on the outside of the tournament entirely.
All fixtures involving Pakistan Champions are now cancelled following their withdrawal. Organisers are expected to confirm a revised schedule for the remaining six teams in due course.
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