Mumbai, Feb. 8 -- A week after threatening to boycott the money-spinning T20 World Cup league game against India, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has formally reached out to the International Cricket Council (ICC) to initiate dialogue, brightening prospects of the mega clash going ahead as per schedule. The two parties are known to be discussing ways in which to end the impasse, an official close to developments told HT. "ICC is currently engaging in a structured manner to explore possible resolutions without confrontation," the official said. This is the first time that PCB has shown interest in discussing the matter after Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif made a social media post on Feb 1 that Pakistan would not be taking the field in the World Cup league match against India in Colombo on Feb 15. "The Govt of Islamic Republic of Pakistan grants approval to the Pakistan cricket team to participate in the ICC World T20 2026. However, the Pakistan cricket team shall not take the field in the match scheduled on 15th February, 2026 against India," a Government of Pakistan post on X said. It is understood that a series of events transpired in the interim that included PCB invoking the force majeure clause citing government instructions not to participate in the match. (Force majeure is a contractual provision that excuses a party from fulfilling its obligations due to extraordinary events beyond its control.) The ICC responded with queries linked to the force majeure in the Terms of Participation and asked PCB to demonstrate what it had done to mitigate the same. The Pakistan board was made aware of the damages that the governing body could claim from it. These damages, it was communicated to them in the absence of force majeure being legitimately invoked, would be both commercial and from a governance standpoint. With their revenue stream from ICC under threat, implications of having to compensate the commercial partners for losses arising out of a no show against India and with little support in the governing body's board for its stated position, PCB is known to be back on the discussion table. This after PCB initially refused to acknowledge two written communications sent by ICC as a follow up to their public statement in response to Pakistan PM's social media post. On Feb 2, HT had reported how despite the public position of PCB, backchannel talks were underway. Next Sunday's mega clash is estimated to be in the range of 20% of commercial worth of any ICC tournament. Media rights being the primary source of revenue in ICC events, the 2024-27 broadcast deal from the Indian market is worth $3 billion. Officials in the ICC maintain that they have acted in neutrality in the Pakistan matter as they did in the Bangladesh situation, where its demand to play in the World Cup only if the matches were moved out of India was rejected. That led to Bangladesh's exit and Scotland's arrival as the replacement team. Bangladesh had cited reasons why it wanted the matches moved out of India, a claim that was dismissed by an independent review conducted by ICC....