The decision to withdraw from the World Cup was taken by the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) on the travel advisory issued by the health ministry.

In a statement NRAI chief Raninder Singh said, “Acting upon the travel advisory by the Ministry of Health dated the 26th of this month, wherein certain nations have been listed for a complete travel ban, the Indian team has therefore been withdrawn from the Cyprus WC beginning Mar 4, because we have found that at least one of those nations will be represented there.”

“We wish to make abundantly clear, that we have no comment to offer on their participation which we consider to be their right and therefore upholding their right to participate at the same time complying with the ministry of health advisory, we have taken the step of our Shotgun team traveling to Cyprus,” he said.

'This also is borne by the fact that we would have had to inform our administrative Ministry of the participation of one of the nations listed in the advisory, dated the 26th. Which would have meant that our team would have come in contact with that team and bearing in mind the advisory and its content, it would further mean that there would be a very high likelihood of our athletes being quarantined upon return to India.’

“Now, given the next World Cup commences on the 16th and our team was scheduled to travel back to Delhi on the 12th, it would follow, should any of them had been quarantined, they would not have been able to represent the country in New Delhi'eping the health and welfare of our athletes as a primary concern and in compliance with the ministry of Health travel advisory and finally given the facts as stated above, the NRAI decided to regrettably withdraw its team," he added.