It is seen on village greens and in Test arenas alike. It is there at the start of the game, just after the coin toss, and it is there at the end when the final run is struck or wicket falls. According to research from the University of Dundee it should last between one-and-a-half and three seconds, just long enough to reassure both participants, but not so long as to feel overbearing.
In the tapestry of the sport it is less consequential than the colour of the captain’s socks or what the home team has laid out for tea. And yet its absence is instantly conspicuous, sometimes enough to spark controversy, fines or even diplomatic fallout.
The most recent reminder came this month. India had just beaten Pakistan in the Asia Cup by seven wickets, but there was no post-match handshake. No nods, no pats on the back. Just players collecting kit and heading for the tunnel. The omission was deafening. Within hours, clips of the “no-handshake” were being dissected frame by frame online. #Handshakegate was trending.
The Pakistan Cricket Board lodged a formal complaint with the Asian Cricket Council and India officials replied that handshakes are a custom, not a law, and soon enough a match referee found himself in the headlines. On Sunday, India again kept their hands firmly in their pockets. For a gesture meant to signal closure, this one had opened an international row.
India’s captain, Suryakumar Yadav, was clear that the snub was a consequence of recent border tensions between the two nuclear powers. In April, 26 civilians were killed in a militant attack in India-administered Kashmir. The Indian government blamed Pakistan and launched a counterstrike in response. Fighter planes were shot down and holy sites were damaged. Against that backdrop, the absence of handshakes was hardly just a matter of etiquette. It became shorthand for a wider political freeze.
Cricket has always carried a freight beyond bat and ball: a handshake at the end of a match is supposed to mean that whatever has transpired stays on the field. When the hands stay unshaken, it signals something else entirely. The MCC’s Spirit of Cricket preamble calls on players to “respect opponents” and play hard, but fair, and the handshake is its simplest, most visible embodiment.
History is dotted with moments when the clasp of palms stood for something more grand. The coming together of Richie Benaud and Frank Worrell after the first tied Test, between Australia and West Indies, in 1960, helped forge a rivalry and signal the sport’s expansion beyond its traditional centres. That West Indies team, led by Worrell, was the first to be captained for an entire series by a Black cricketer, a moment that challenged the old hierarchies of empire and proved that players from the islands could not only compete with, but thrill, the cricketing world.
In 1987, Pakistan’s General Zia-ul-Haq flew to Jaipur for what was dubbed “cricket diplomacy”, exchanging handshakes with India’s prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, at a time when their nations were on the brink of conflict. And in Mohali in 2011, Manmohan Singh and Yusuf Raza Gilani walked on to the outfield before the World Cup semi-final to greet the teams. For a few hours the game became a proxy for detente, the handshake a stand-in for a peace summit.
If those are handshakes as olive branches, cricket has also given us handshakes as icons. Twenty years ago, in an Ashes bursting with enduring images, Andrew Flintoff stooped to shake Brett Lee’s hand after England’s two-run win at Edgbaston. Winner and loser are indistinguishable as two exhausted heroes shared a moment of mutual respect. It’s the spirit of cricket in one frame, captured by the Guardian’s Tom Jenkins.
The history of cricket handshakes has its flashpoints and 2023 produced three that crackled like live wires. In February, Scotland refused post-match handshakes with Nepal’s Sandeep Lamichhane in protest while he faced sexual-coercion charges (a subsequent rape conviction was quashed on appeal in 2024). In May, Virat Kohli and Naveen-ul-Haq’s Indian Premier League handshake flared into a glare-off that drew fines before the pair reconciled during the World Cup in October. And in November, after Angelo Mathews became the first batter to be timed out at a one-day World Cup, Sri Lanka’s players declined to shake hands with Bangladesh, exacerbating an already simmering feud between the sides.
Then there was Old Trafford in July. With India’s Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar – both in the 90s – batting for a draw, Ben Stokes decided enough was enough. The England captain extended a stiff right hand to bring the game to a premature end, but the pair declined, opting to continue their pursuit of deserving centuries. At stumps, a brief clip appeared to show Stokes refusing to shake Jadeja’s hand. Within hours the moment had been edited, captioned and turned into a referendum on the spirit of cricket. Later footage showed the two did shake hands at the presentation, but by then the narrative had run away: the snub, real or imagined, had become the story.
Why does this matter? Social psychologists have shown that a handshake shapes first impressions, signalling trust, confidence and respect. Cricket, for ever a slave to ritual and the impression of decency, has turned this seemingly inconsequential gesture into something important. No wonder a missing handshake feels like a violation of an unspoken contract, not just between individuals or nations, but against the game itself.
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