You may see it in both village greens and Test arenas. It starts the game, just after the coin toss, and ends it when the last run is scor...
You may see it in both village greens and Test arenas. It starts the game, just after the coin toss, and ends it when the last run is scored or the last wicket falls. The University of Dundee says that it should last between one and a half and three seconds, which is long enough to reassure both people but not so long that it seems too much.
It doesn't matter as much as the color of the captain's socks or what the home team prepares for tea. But when it isn't there, it stands out right away, sometimes enough to cause arguments, fines, or even diplomatic problems.
This month was the most recent reminder. India had just won the Asia Cup by seven wickets against Pakistan, but there was no handshake after the game. No pats on the back or nods. Just players getting their gear and going to the tunnel. The lack of it was deafening. Within hours, people were breaking down the "no-handshake" video frame by frame online. #Handshakegate was a hot topic.
The Pakistan Cricket Board made a formal protest to the Asian Cricket Council, and Indian authorities said that handshakes are a custom, not a law. Soon after, a match referee was in the news. India had their hands firmly in their pockets again on Sunday. This gesture was supposed to indicate "the end," but it started an international fight.
Suryakumar Yadav, the captain of India, said that the snub was because of current tensions between the two nuclear powers near the border. In April, a militant strike in Kashmir, which is controlled by India, killed 26 civilians. The Indian administration accused Pakistan and then struck back. They shot down fighter jets and destroyed holy places. In light of that, not shaking hands was not merely a matter of good manners. It became a simple way to say that politics had come to a halt.
Cricket has always been more than just a bat and ball game. A handshake at the end of a match is supposed to imply that everything that happened stays on the field. When the hands stay still, it means something else. The MCC's Spirit of Cricket preamble tells players to "respect opponents" and play hard, but fair. The handshake is the simplest and most obvious way to show this.
There have been times in history when the clasp of hands meant something bigger. Richie Benaud and Frank Worrell's meeting after the first tied Test between Australia and the West Indies in 1960 helped create a rivalry and show that the sport was growing beyond its traditional centers. Worrell headed the West Indies team, which was the first to have a Black cricketer as captain for a whole series. This was a moment that shook up the old power structures of empire and showed that players from the islands could not only compete with, but also excite, the cricketing globe. In 1987, Pakistan's General Zia-ul-Haq traveled to Jaipur for what was called "cricket diplomacy." He shook hands with India's Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at a time when their countries were about to go to war. And in Mohali in 2011, Manmohan Singh and Yusuf Raza Gilani stepped down to the field before the World Cup semi-final to meet the teams. For a few hours, the game was a stand-in for peace and the handshake was a stand-in for a peace summit.
If those are handshakes as peace offerings, cricket has also given us handshakes as symbols. Twenty years ago, when the Ashes were full of memorable moments, Andrew Flintoff bent down to shake Brett Lee's hand after England won by two runs at Edgbaston. Two tired heroes exchanged a moment of respect, and it was hard to tell who won and who lost. Tom Jenkins of the Guardian caught the spirit of cricket in one frame.
There have been some exciting moments in the history of cricket handshakes, and three of them happened in 2023. Scotland declined to shake hands with Nepal's Sandeep Lamichhane after the game in February as a protest over sexual coercion charges (a later rape conviction was overturned on appeal in 2024). Virat Kohli and Naveen-ul-Haq's handshake in May turned into a glare-off that resulted to fines. The two made up during the World Cup in October. In November, after Angelo Mathews became the first batsman to be timed out in a one-day World Cup, Sri Lanka's players refused to shake hands with Bangladesh, making an already bad situation worse.
In July, there was Old Trafford. Ben Stokes had had enough as India's Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar, both in their 90s, were batting for a draw. The England captain offered a stiff right hand to terminate the game early, but the two turned it down and instead to keep going for their centuries. At the end of the day, a short film seemed to show Stokes not shaking Jadeja's hand. The scene was edited, labeled, and converted into a vote on the spirit of cricket within hours. Later footage indicated that the two did shake hands during the presentation, but by then the story had moved on: the snub, whether genuine or perceived, had become the main story.
Why is this important? Social psychologists have demonstrated that a handshake influences first perceptions, conveying trust, confidence, and respect. Cricket, which has always been a slave to tradition and the idea of decorum, has made this act seem meaningful. It's no surprise that a missing handshake feels like breaking an unspoken agreement, not just between people or countries, but also against the game itself.