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The India Women's National Cricket Team is set to start their journey in this year's Women's Asia Cup. Being in the same group, Team India is all set to face their arch-rival Pakistan early in the tournament. In the third match of the tournament, India will be against Pakistan.
Ahead of the tournament opener, India Women's captain Harmanpreet Kaur was asked whether they would prefer to shake hands with the Pakistan cricket team's captain. Like multiple times before, this time too, Kaur maintained her professional approach and said that her team's focus will be only on.
India-Pakistan handshake row sparks again ahead of Women's Asia Cup 2026
India Women's cricket team will start their Women's Asia Cup journey on August 30 through a match against Thailand at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. Harmanpreet Kaur-led team will face Pakistan on September 5 in Dubai after their second match of the campaign against Hong Kong. India is one of the clear favourites to win the tournament, but will have to cross the Pakistan hurdle first in the group stage to test their strengths.
Ahead of the tournament, when Kaur was attending a press conference, a journalist asked her where she should shake hands with Fatima Sana, the Pakistan Women's captain. It has become a common question before the beginning of every tournament where an India vs Pakistan match is on the cards.
Harmanpreet Kaur, the skipper, answering directly on the India-Pakistan handshake row
As the handshake row is more resulted out of political reasons, cricketers keep themselves away from answering a straight yes or no.
"I think our main focus is just, you know, playing good cricket and our main focus is just playing cricket other than giving focus to the other impact of the game," Harmanpreet Kaur told the reporter.
Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur Bhullar replies to a journalist when being asked about the handshake with the Pakistan team.
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"We are not putting any focus on one particular team, which is going to be tough for us. All the teams have been doing well, ll and our focus is to play good cricket and not to take any team easily," she added.
Team India is entering the tournament as the reigning ODI champions, while Sri Lanka will take part as the defending champions in the title race. The Women's Asia Cup involves eight teams including Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the UAE, Thailand, Hong Kong, China and Indonesia.
Harmanpreet Kaur is expecting a tough set of matches ahead in the Women's Asia Cup 2026
Further in the press conference, Harmanpreet Kaur stated that over the last few years, the Asian teams have improved a lot. So the tournament is not going to be a cakewalk for them. Kaur vowed to do well in the tournament.
"This tournament is very important for us as a team to do well. Especially all the teams, they are the ones in the last two-three years we have seen massive improvement. And whenever we are playing against them, they are not giving anything easy to us. This is going to be very challenging, but at the same time, our experience will help us," she added.
