India suspends IPL for a week, Pakistan moves T20 league to UAE amid conflict

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Cricket Board on Friday said it was moving remaining matches of the Pakistan Super League to the United Arab Emirates while the Indian Premier League was separately suspended for one week in the wake of the ongoing conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
Tensions between the rivals have escalated since Wednesday when India conducted strikes on multiple locations in Pakistan in response to a deadly attack targeting tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22 that New Delhi blames on its neighbor. Islamabad has denied any complicity in the attack.
Pakistan said it had shot down five Indian fighter jets in retaliation to strikes by India and downed 77 drones launched from India. One of the drones was shot down in the city of Rawalpindi, near a cricket stadium where PSL matches were being held. 
Officials have confirmed the killing of nearly 50 people on both sides since Wednesday in the worst violence in decades between the neighbors.
“The PCB has always stood by the position that politics and sports need to be kept apart,” PCB Chair Mohsin Naqvi said as he announced that the remaining eight fixtures of this year’s PSL, previously scheduled to be played in Rawalpindi, Multan and Lahore, would now be staged in the UAE. 
“I regret that our domestic audience and cricket lovers will not be able to watch these matches in Pakistan’s stadiums,” Naqvi added. 
Separately, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said it had decided to suspend the remainder of the ongoing IPL 2025 with immediate effect for one week. 
The IPL governing council consulted the franchises and players and “considered it prudent to act in the collective interest of all stakeholders,” secretary Devajit Saikia said in a statement on Friday.
“While cricket remains a national passion, there is nothing greater than the nation and its sovereignty, integrity, and security of our country … The BCCI remains firmly committed to support all efforts that safeguard India and will always align its decisions in the best interest of the nation.”
Friday’s IPL match in Dharamsala was abandoned midway through, with organizers citing a power outage, while Sunday’s game at the same north Indian city was shifted to Ahmedabad because of the border tensions.
With inputs from Reuters