The Pakistan under-19 cricket team found themselves at the centre of an ugly misunderstanding on Tuesday night when a group of protesters descended on their hotel in Portsmouth after wrongly assuming the young players were newly arrived migrants.
Around 30 to 40 people gathered outside the Marriott Hotel in Cosham after rumours spread online that a coach carrying migrants had pulled up at the venue. It hadn’t. It was the Pakistan under-19 squad, in England on a cricket tour.
The tension did not stay in the corridor.
According to Sumair Syed, chief operating officer of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), some members of the group made it up to the floor where the team were staying and began knocking on players’ doors. Inside those rooms were teenagers preparing for their next match.
Syed said the players “behaved responsibly and didn't escalate the situation”, choosing calm over confrontation in a scenario that could easily have spiralled.
Police were called. Hampshire Police later confirmed that officers attended, found no offences had been committed and that the crowd dispersed by about 21:00 BST. No arrests, no charges — but an uneasy episode for a visiting youth side whose only job in England is to play cricket.
They did exactly that the next day. Syed confirmed the team went ahead with their scheduled match, drawing a firm line between the disturbance off the field and their work on it.
For the PCB, though, the incident raised serious questions about security and responsibility.
Syed described the scenes as “unfortunate” and said he had been in direct contact with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). He added that the ECB had “assured us that every possible measure should be taken for the security of the escort”.
“This is the responsibility of the whole sport to ensure the safety, security and well-being of the visiting team,” he said. “They are on it and we are hopeful that nothing of such sort will happen in the future.”
While the tourists tried to move on, attention in Portsmouth turned to how the crowd had formed in the first place.
Reform county councillor George Madgwick, who went to the hotel as the situation unfolded, said staff quickly produced “proof” that the guests in question were the Pakistan under-19 touring side. He said he then urged people online not to attend and to stand down.
The damage, though, had already been done. The spark had come from a single social media post.
“Someone online saw a group of what looked like foreign nationals leaving the coach and put a photo of it online and that's where it spurred from,” Madgwick told the BBC. “It was mere speculation rather than based on truth or fact.
“In this case they have made a grave error, a grave mistake.”
The councillor has since faced criticism over the tone and impact of the online reaction. Responding to comments on his Facebook post, Madgwick rejected claims that the response to the cricketers’ arrival had been racist.
“I think one person made the assumption and everybody else followed that assumption,” he said. “It isn't a good reflection on our city. It's not something I want our city to be known for.”
For a group of teenagers representing their country, it was an introduction not to English pitches or conditions, but to the febrile atmosphere around migration and the speed with which rumour can turn into confrontation.
The PCB expects stronger guarantees now. The ECB has given them. The next question is whether the game can insulate its youngest visitors from becoming collateral in someone else’s argument.
