The ICC is confident that teams will have no reservations to travel to Pakistan for the 2025 Champions Trophy despite over a decade of doubts about playing in that part of the world. The ICC last week gave Pakistan the right to host the 2025 Champions Trophy. It will mark the return of the premier cricketing event in Pakistan after more than two decades.
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The last time Pakistan hosted an ICC on its own soil was when it co-hosted the 1996 World Cup India and Sri Lanka. Since the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team bus in Lahore in 2009, it has not been able to host many international games in the country.
“The answer is, from what we can see so far, of course (the teams will travel),” ICC President Greg Barkley said during the media roundtable while answering PTI’s question. “The ICC cricket event is coming back to Pakistan after many years. All this has gone ahead without issue except what happened in the last few weeks,” said Barkley, who was joined by ICC CEO Geoff Allardyce.
In September, New Zealand and England pulled out of their bilateral tour of Pakistan due to security concerns. Barkley insisted that the governing body would not award hosting rights to Pakistan if it was not convinced that the event was proceeding successfully.
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“So, if we don’t think Pakistan is capable of hosting it, we don’t honor the event. “We think this is an exciting opportunity, the prospect for them to be able to host a world event for the first time for a considerable period of time.” “It is not until 2025 and I am sure that they, as all countries need to do, will put together proper protection plans and assurances to ensure that they can be delivered.” So yes, we Were comfortable and confident that we would go ahead,” Barkley said.
India’s participation in the tournament remains a doubt as there has been no bilateral cricket between the two neighbors since 2012 due to diplomatic tensions following the terror attacks in India. Sports Minister Anurag Thakur had last week said that a decision on India’s participation in the Champions Trophy would be taken in due course as there are still security issues for international teams to tour the neighboring country.
Barkley acknowledged that it would be a challenging issue to work on and hoped that cricket could improve relations between the two neighbours. “We know this is a particularly challenging issue to work on. I mean, from my point of view, I can’t control what geopolitical forces are working on what we do.” But I hope That cricket can be forced to help improve the relationship between them. “The great thing that sport can do is to help bring people together across nations. So, if we can do something and do it in small ways to contribute to that, that is fantastic,” he said.
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