As PCB plans and prepares to bring the world’s attention to Pakistan through the hosting of the ICC Champions Trophy in 2025, a big hindrance is India’s unwillingness to tour Pakistan.
The 16-match tournament, which is to start on February 19 in Karachi and the final on March 9 at Lahore, poses a potential threat to India’s participation due to the diplomatic standoff between the two polar nations.
The PCB chairman, Khalid Mahmood, shared his apprehensions, which included Indian reluctance, which he opined does not bode well for the event’s finances; a team from India is indispensable. While extensively commenting on this issue, Mahmood said: “There are virtually no possibilities they will agree to play in Pakistan.
” Currently, India is the richest cricket board and has a lot of power. If they do not send their team to Pakistan, I expect even Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh to do the same, and that would turn the Champions Trophy into a venture with high revenues, increasing expenses, and decreasing profits.
To lecture, Mahmood underscored the need to tactfully guide the PCB because India has sufficient leverage in the ICC to make a ‘cut and thrust diplomacy’ ineffective.
Still, the PCB does not budge from the position of organizing the entire Champions Trophy in Pakistan using the unchangeable slogan of “Pakistan’s event in Pakistan. ” As the cricket fans are hoping for the upcoming destinies of the 2025 edition, the political relations between India and Pakistan still hold the power over the event.
