New Delhi: Bangladesh leg spinner Rishad Hossain, one of the overseas players plying his trade at the Pakistan Super League (PSL) 2025, said that they were relieved landing in Dubai after having gone through a tense phase in Pakistan, due to its increasing border tensions with India. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had postponed the T20 league on Friday, just hours after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) suspended the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 for a week.
Every overseas player in the PSL was ferried out to the UAE from where they boarded the connecting flights to their final destinations, their home, which they missed badly during the ongoing warfare. “Alhamdulillah, we have reached Dubai after overcoming a crisis, and I am feeling well now,” Rishad spoke to reporters at Dubai Airport, as quoted by Cricbuzz.
The Bangladesh cricketer said that there was news of a missile hitting the airport just 20 minutes after they took off. “Now after reaching Dubai we are feeling relieved,” he said while also adding the ordeal his family faced being concerned about him in the current situation. “I personally tried to console them and tell them not to worry about me and they were quite normal,” he added.
Rishad on other foreign players
The 22-year-old cricketer had the company of compatriot Nahid Rana, and the two were the only Bangladeshi players in the PSL 2025. Rishad said that Nahid was quite shaken by the events that unfolded. “Nahid Rana was very quiet, maybe for the tension, as I understood. I kept telling him not to be tense and, hopefully, nothing would happen to us.”
He then talked about the non-Asian players who, according to him, were also shaken up by the critical border situation. “Foreign players like Sam Billings, Daryl Mitchell, Kushal Perera, David Wiese, Tom Curran… all of them were so frightened… Landing in Dubai, Mitchell told me that he would never go to Pakistan again, especially in this kind of scenario. Overall, they were all horrified,” Rishad said.
Tom Curran, who also plays in the PSL, seemed most frightened of all, as revealed by Rishad. “He (Tom Curran) went to the airport, but heard that the airport was closed. Then he started crying like a little child, that it took two or three people to handle him,” he added.
Rishad also spoke about the meeting held with PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi, who at first wanted to conduct the remainder of PSL in Karachi but following the overseas players’ concerns in the meeting, decided to move it out of Pakistan, to the UAE – a “safe” option which many foreign players vouched for.
According to Rishad, the PCB chair hid the fact that there were two drone strikes the day before, while giving them the option of Karachi. Looking at the tense condition of the overseas players, flights were arranged for them to move out, after the tournament was postponed.
As Rishad Hossain revealed it, there was a lot of fear and panic before the foreign players at PSL 2025 were flown out to Dubai. The tournament was indefinitely postponed on Friday. Cricket Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today
