ICC Board set to meet on Friday for final decision on Champions Trophy 2025 venue with three options on the table.
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 before the event’s planned start time. Three options will be taken into consideration.
A hybrid alternative, in which India-related matches are played outside of Pakistan while the majority of matches are played in Pakistan.
The PCB may choose to keep hosting rights, however the competition is played entirely outside of Pakistan.
Without India, the entire tournament is held in Pakistan.
Given the detrimental effects it will have on the tournament’s finances and business, the last of those possibilities is all but a no-go. The first, a hybrid model, had a lower probability on Thursday after a PCB official stated that they had once again warned the ICC that it was not going to happen.
According to Mohsin Naqvi, the chairman of the PCB, the likelihood of a hybrid model appeared to have increased somewhat twelve hours prior, in the early hours of Thursday morning in Pakistan. When repeatedly questioned about it, Naqvi just stated that he will forward the Pakistani government’s decision to the ICC board.
This was somewhat different from earlier public and strong opposition to a hybrid approach under consideration. However, Naqvi reiterated the possibility that Pakistan would no longer be able or ready to play in India, which will be a persistent issue given that India will host the Women’s World Cup in 2025, the Asia Cup in 2025, the Men’s T20 World Cup in 2026, and the Champions Trophy in 2029.
That may actually be one of the requirements that the PCB will accept any hybrid model for the time being: that the ICC then examines the same option for tournaments in India, where Pakistan’s government is now unlikely to grant travel clearance.
If all goes according to plan, Pakistan will host the Champions Trophy for the first time since the 1996 World Cup after winning the hosting rights in November 2021. However, when the BCCI told the ICC earlier this month that the Indian government had not granted its squad permission to visit Pakistan, their standing was completely upended.
Given that no Indian team had visited Pakistan since 2008—when the Mumbai attacks later that year sent ties between the two nations into a tailspin—that was not shocking. Since then, Pakistan has made three trips to India: for a bilateral series in 2012–13, the T20 World Cup in 2016, and, most recently, the ODI World Cup in 2023.
The PCB had to adopt a hybrid model for the Asia Cup just before the World Cup but had hoped that going to India would result in a reciprocal gesture for the Champions Trophy.