Protesters gathered outside a Portsmouth hotel after mistaking Pakistan’s Under-19 cricket team for asylum seekers. Reports had spread that around 40 men, who appeared foreign, had arrived at the Marriott Hotel. A tense standoff followed until local authorities stepped in and cleared up the mix-up.
Crowd Gathers Outside Marriott Hotel Amid Confusion
Word spread through Portsmouth that roughly 40 men who did not appear English had checked into the Marriott Hotel. A crowd formed outside the building.
Tensions rose as people speculated about who the group might be, and the gathering grew large enough that hotel staff and local officials felt they had to step in. Nobody in the crowd knew at the time that the men belonged to a touring cricket side, not a group seeking asylum in the UK.
Local Councillor Steps In to Defuse the Standoff
George Madgwick, a Reform councillor for the area, received a call about the gathering and went to the hotel to intervene directly. He spoke first with the Pakistan Under-19 coaching staff, who he described as cooperative and understanding of the confusion.
Madgwick then addressed the protesters himself and told them plainly that they had the wrong idea and that the men inside belonged to a cricket club, not an asylum-seeking group. The crowd dispersed within a couple of minutes of hearing this.
Madgwick later told the Guardian that the incident reflected a broader anxiety in Portsmouth, where residents have grown wary after similar coach arrivals in the past involved large groups of foreign nationals under different circumstances. He called the mix-up massively unfortunate, given how quickly it escalated before anyone checked the facts.
The England and Wales Cricket Board has since contacted the Pakistan team management to address the incident directly, and officials are now reviewing hotel security arrangements for touring sides to prevent a repeat of what happened.
Pakistan U-19 Team’s Busy Schedule in England
The mix-up came in the middle of a packed tour schedule for Pakistan’s junior side. The Under-19 squad played a four-day fixture against their England counterparts in Arundel from September 2 to 5, a match Pakistan lost by ten runs. Four days later, on September 9, the two sides met again in a Youth ODI, and this time Pakistan turned the tables convincingly, as they won by 177 runs.
The tour has kept the young squad on the move across England, and the Portsmouth incident occurred while they were still working through this stretch of fixtures. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s senior men’s team has been playing simultaneously in England. Currently, they are contesting the third and final Test of their series against the hosts at Edgbaston.
The overlap between the senior and junior tours has put Pakistan cricket in the English spotlight for weeks, though for very different reasons following this latest development. Officials from both cricket boards are expected to discuss additional safeguards for touring squads staying in public accommodation, particularly given the current political climate around immigration in parts of the UK.
For now, the Pakistan Under-19 team continues its tour without further disruption, though the incident has drawn attention to how quickly public perception can shift based on limited information and appearance alone.
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