MULTAN: England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chiefs are confident a solution can be found if India do not travel to Pakistan for the 2025 Champions Trophy, adding that India’s participation is necessary to protect the tournament’s broadcast rights.

Pakistan, who won the last edition of the Champions Trophy staged in England in 2017, will host the Feb 19-March 9 tournament.

Due to their soured political relations, India have not visited Pakistan since 2008 and the rivals play each other only at multi-team events.

Pakistan also hosted the Asia Cup last year but eventual winners India played all their matches in Sri Lanka under what the organisers called a “hybrid model”. At the time, India said they did not get permission from their government to tour Pakistan.

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) vice-president Rajeev Shukla said last month the final decision over whether India will travel to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy would be taken by the country’s government.

“I know Pakistan are expecting India to travel,” ECB chief executive Richard Gould told reporters in Multan on Wednesday.

Gould and ECB chair Richard Thompson are in Pakistan for England’s three-Test series and met with Pakistan Cricket Board officials during the ongoing second Test in Multan.

“There are lots of different alternatives and contingencies available if that doesn’t happen. I wouldn’t have thought [it would be played without India], because if you play the Champions Trophy without India the broadcast rights aren’t there, and we need to protect them.

“Hopefully, we can have the fullest possible competition in Pakistan,” Gould added.

Thompson said he was confident all involved parties could come to an understanding, pointing to the sides’ meeting at the T20 World Cup this year.

“They [Pakistan] are the host nation. We’ve seen the developments going on, and we’re all waiting to understand whether India is going to travel. That’s the key. We think there are some discussions and relationships where they need to be. I know Pakistan are expecting India to travel,” Thompson stated.

“It would not be in cricket’s interests for India not to be playing in the Champions Trophy.

“There’s geopolitics, and then there’s cricketing geopolitics. I think they’ll find a way. They have to find a way,” Thompson said.

“There are always security concerns in this part of the world when those two countries play each other. That will probably drive the key decisions.

“But I know relationships between the two countries are as amicable as they can be at the moment, we saw it play out at the [men’s T20] World Cup in New York.”

Mohammad Yaqoob from Lahore adds:

The PCB said that it remained committed to staging the Champions Trophy successfully.

“The PCB remains committed to hosting the entire ICC Champions Trophy 2025 in Pakistan. In this regard, all renovation and upgradation work at Lahore and Karachi is taking place at a brisk pace to ensure Pakistan is fully ready to deliver a world-class and memorable event for all participants and visitors in 2025,” a spokesman of the PCB said.

A PCB official on the condition of anonymity told Dawn that PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi, who is also federal interior minister, met Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who was in Islamabad to attend the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, representing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who did not come for the summit because of strained political relations between the two neighbouring countries.

“Yes, Mohsin met Jaishankar but it is not confirmed if any discussion over the resumption of [bilateral] cricket relations between the two countries was held at the government level,” the official said.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2024