News from the Indian side is that the BCCI has communicated to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) that the team won’t be travelling to Pakistan for the 2025 Champions Trophy and India’s matches should be allocated to Dubai instead. The response from across the border is that the PCB is yet to receive any letter/email from its Indian counterpart in this regard and Pakistan is not considering a hybrid model for the ICC event.
Between the lines, the possibility of India going to Pakistan for the showpiece event, which the PCB will host, appears bleak and a hybrid model could be the only outcome. RevSportz reported on July 15, quoting an ICC insider, that a hybrid model for the Champions Trophy was a real possibility.
According to sources in the know, the BCCI has already written to the PCB, saying that India will not change its stance of not sending the cricket team to Pakistan due to security reasons. This is “in consultation” with the Indian government. That India’s matches should be shifted to Dubai has been communicated to the PCB as well.
Asked about this, PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi told reporters in Pakistan on Friday: “No discussion (has taken place) on hybrid model with us. No official word from the BCCI. We must separate sports and politics.”
He added: “If the Indian team is not coming to Pakistan, then the PCB will ask the Pakistan government about the matter. If the Indian government decides not to send the Indian team to Pakistan, they shouldn’t expect good (gestures) from us as well. Having said that, I’m hopeful that the Indian team will visit Pakistan.”
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According to an ICC insider, a hybrid model for the Champions Trophy could be the only option if the BCCI doesn’t get the go-ahead from the Indian government to send the team to Pakistan.@shamik100 ✍🏻https://t.co/8XdBhsgroC
— RevSportz Global (@RevSportzGlobal) July 15, 2024
It is learnt that an ICC delegation is going to Pakistan to oversee the preparation of the venues — Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi — on November 12. By November 15, the world body will release the tournament schedule.
Last year, when the PCB hosted the Asia Cup, the BCCI demanded that the tournament be played in a hybrid model and eventually, India’s matches were shifted to Sri Lanka. Pakistan, however, came to India for the 50-over World Cup.
With Jay Shah, the current BCCI secretary, set to assume the role of the ICC’s independent chair on December 1, a section in Pakistan cricket feels that he should give world cricket a new direction. The fact of the matter is that, this is totally the Indian government’s call and neither the BCCI nor Shah has any role to play here.
There was some hope that India might be going to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy after India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s visit to Pakistan last month, and his interaction with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting. But with regards to cricket, things haven’t changed.
India last toured Pakistan in 2008 for the Asia Cup.
Also Read: Champions Trophy in hybrid model a possibility, says ICC insider