JAHANGIR KHAN The Squash Legend and Pakistan’s Pride
- 25 Jan - 31 Jan, 2025
We are here again. Not for the first time and probably not the last. With under 100 days to go for the 2025 Champions Trophy, scheduled in Pakistan, the ICC has still not formally announced the dates for the tournament. The schedule, too, has not been finalised. Why? India, one of the eight participating countries, will not travel to Pakistan – a decision taken by the Indian government, according to the BCCI in its communication to the ICC.
We have been here, not once but twice, as recently as 2023. Take your memory back to last year’s Asia Cup and ODI World Cup and you will see a similar pattern. In the first instance, the PCB was forced to loosen its stance that the event would be held solely in Pakistan after the BCCI said India did not have permission from their government to travel across the border. Eventually it was Pakistan, the hosts, who ended up boarding flights to and from Sri Lanka, where India played all their matches, including the final. At the World Cup, the PCB pushed to get the ICC to adopt the hybrid model, but Pakistan eventually travelled to India. They travelled, it has since emerged, despite deep reservations within the Pakistan government.
Twelve months later we are once again in familiar territory: the BCCI has made its move, comfortably standing in one corner, arms folded. At the opposite end, the PCB stands steadfast, refusing to blink or budge. The ICC, in theory the adjudicator, remains tight-lipped. It is a shambolic situation. Anyone could have seen this Champions Trophy imbroglio coming, but cricket’s governing body did not.
In November 2021 the ICC board allocated hosting rights for various global events in the 2024-31 rights cycle to several boards. The PCB, which had bid for two events, was allocated the 2025 Champions Trophy. As a reminder, the ICC board comprises directors who represent the 12 Full Members, along with an independent director, three directors representing the Associates, and the ICC chairman and CEO. So this was a collective call. If there was even a single voice of caution three years ago when it came to allotting the Champions Trophy to Pakistan, details of it have never emerged. Did nobody see this coming? Maybe they did but opted to look down or the other way instead?
In the fraught political climate that has existed between the two neighbours since the Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008, you didn’t need to be a fortune-teller to raise a red flag about whether India would actually travel to Pakistan in 2025.
However, in a professional environment, you need accountability instead of relying on good faith. Why did the ICC, in 2021, not attach a few conditions when it allotted the Champions Trophy to Pakistan, starting with an official timeline including deadlines, with one specifically for the BCCI: communicate well in advance to the ICC whether India would travel to Pakistan? Such a hard stop could have been put in, say, a year before the actual event. In the absence of any such cutoff, the BCCI’s first communication to the ICC that India would not travel was relayed around November 6. That is just over three months before the scheduled start of the tournament on February 19.
More than one person involved in the bids allocation process said that one reason the ICC board believed conditions might be favourable for India to visit for the Champions Trophy was if Pakistan went to India for the 2023 World Cup - which they did But more crucially, what plan was in place to deal with the outcome that was always likely? In a perfect and equitable world, global tournaments could go ahead without teams that are unable to participate in the prescribed way, but no ICC tournament is commercially tenable without India’s participation, a fact that was emphatically underlined during the last broadcast deal. Why wasn’t a hybrid option part of the contingency plan if India failed to travel to Pakistan? Or was it assumed that the PCB would once again fall in line and acquiesce to a hybrid model?
As it turns out and as was pointed out to them recently by a senior official from an overseas board, the PCB might have a little leverage by dint of their team being part of the most watched and most lucrative match in an ICC event. It might have been unacceptable to the PCB to accept the hosting rights with a hybrid option attached as a contingency. But it would have been the most pragmatic and clear-minded approach, since it is beyond the ICC to persuade the Indian government to allow the Indian team to travel to Pakistan. Instead, the ICC leadership has opted to kick the problem down the road, hoping it will somehow resolve itself.
In our increasingly divided and divisive world, strong leadership is required to maintain equilibrium. The ICC board in the past has shown it is capable of doing that. Now it needs bold solutions for the future. The ICC board will congregate on Friday in the hopes of ending the saga of where and how the 2025 Champions Trophy will be played, with less than three months to the scheduled start of the event. They will consider three options:
1. A hybrid option, where the majority of matches are played in Pakistan but those involving India are played outside Pakistan.
2. The tournament is played entirely outside of Pakistan, with the option of the PCB retaining hosting rights.
3. The entire event is played in Pakistan but without India.
The last of those options is almost a non-starter, given the negative financial and commercial impact it will have on the tournament. The chances of the first – a hybrid model – were reduced on Thursday after a PCB official told they had informed the ICC once again that it was off the table. “The PCB has asked the ICC to give a reasonable or acceptable proposal to Pakistan before the ICC Board meeting tomorrow,” the official said.
Twelve hours earlier, in the early hours of Thursday morning in Pakistan, the chances of a hybrid model seemed to have increased slightly, at least going by the words of Mohsin Naqvi, the PCB chairman. Asked specifically about it multiple times, Naqvi said only that he would take whatever decision the ICC board makes to the Pakistan government.
That was slightly different to the previous public and emphatic rejections of a hybrid model being considered. Nevertheless, Naqvi doubled down on the prospect of Pakistan no longer being willing or able to play in India which, given India is hosting a Women’s World Cup next year, an Asia Cup in 2025, a Men’s T20 World Cup in 2026 and a Champions Trophy in 2029, is going to be a recurring problem.
That, in fact, might be one of the conditions under which the PCB accepts any hybrid model for now: that the ICC then considers the same option for tournaments in India where Pakistan is – as of now – unlikely to be given permission to travel by its government. Naqvi did not say whether Pakistan will play India in this tournament, as they are drawn to by dint of being in the same group. A hybrid model, or an entire relocation, means they will be scheduled to play at a neutral venue; the game not taking place would also mean a significant commercial hit to the tournament. “Whatever we do, we will make sure the best outcome for Pakistan is achieved,” Naqvi said multiple times. “But I repeat, and I am sure you know what I mean, it’s not possible that Pakistan play in India, and they don’t come here.”
Naqvi said the PCB would not be motivated by the pursuit of any financial settlement, quashing informal chatter that the PCB might try and negotiate a heftier hosting fee in return for a hybrid model, promising “that we’ll not just sell our rights out just for more money. This will never happen. But we’ll do whatever is best for Pakistan.” In any event, two countries for venues would require a revised tournament budget.
The meeting will be a virtual one and will likely come down to a vote only if a consensus isn’t reached within the board. But the pressure will be on to reach a resolution swiftly, as time runs out before the tournament and preparations for it begin. An alternate or additional venue will have to be chosen depending on what option the board chooses, and a schedule for the event has to be finalised and released.
Additionally, the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore and the National Stadium in Karachi – two of the Pakistan venues – are undergoing significant renovation and upgradation work, in a race against time to be ready for the tournament. The PCB has assured the ICC board that the venues will be ready for the tournament by the end of this year. Pakistan won hosting rights to the Champions Trophy in November 2021 and, if it goes to plan, it will be the first ICC event they have hosted since the 1996 World Cup.
That was hardly a surprise, given no India team has toured Pakistan since 2008, with the Mumbai attacks later that year throwing relations between the two countries into a downward spiral. Pakistan have visited India three times since then, for a bilateral series in 2012-13, the 2016 T20 World Cup and, most recently, the 2023 ODI World Cup. That trip only happened after a government committee cleared it, despite considerable opposition within certain members.
About the writer
Shahzeb Ali Rizvi is a sports aficionado with a keen eye for the intricacies of cricket and football. He can be reached at [email protected]
COMMENTS