Anti-immigration demonstrators in southern England massed outside a hotel where Pakistan’s Under-19 cricket team were staying after mistaking them for asylum seekers, British media reported Wednesday (September 9, 2026).
Tuesday’s (September 8, 2026) incident came after reports online about a coach with young Asian men on board being seen at a Marriott Hotel in the Portsmouth suburb of Cosham drew protestors to the venue, according to media reports. The senior Pakistan men’s side are currently involved in the third Test against England at Birmingham’s Edgbaston ground.
A councillor from anti-immigration party Reform UK went to the scene and helped disperse the crowd after confirming the men were in fact members of Pakistan’s teenage cricket team, The Guardian newspaper said. A spokesman for Hampshire Police, which is responsible for the region, said the force “were notified that a group of people were starting to congregate” near the hotel Tuesday (September 8, 2026) evening. “The officers explained that their concerns were not correct,” the spokesman said, without confirming the Pakistani cricketers were the mistaken target. “When a Pakistan U-19’s team is faced by protests because it ‘might’ in fact be a group of migrants, it means that effectively any group of black or Asian people coming into the city are being seen by the far right as a potential target,” he said.
