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 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 Richard Gould told reporters on Wednesday.
Gould and ECB chair Richard Thompson are in Pakistan for England’s three-test series and have 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.”
Thompson said he was confident all involved parties could come to an understanding, pointing to the sides’ meeting at the Twenty20 World Cup in the United States this year.
“There’s geopolitics, and then there’s cricketing geopolitics. I think they’ll find a way. They have to find a way,” Thompson added.
“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.”
(Reuters)