Mumbai: The impasse over the upcoming Champions Trophy 2025 is over as sources close to BCCI and ICC claimed on Friday that the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has accepted the hybrid model with India playing its matches in Dubai.
Sources told IANS on Friday night that the International Cricket Council (ICC) has also approved the hybrid model and the event will go ahead in Pakistan in February-March 2025.
As a concession, the ICC, BCCI and PCB have also agreed that the Pakistan men’s team won’t travel to India for their league game against the hosts in the T20 World Cup 2026 and will instead play the match in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Though the ICC and BCCI have not agreed to PCB’s demand for compensation for the revenue loss because it will not host the Indo-Pak clash, the ICC has agreed for it to host a women’s tournament after 2027.
The future of the ICC Men’s Champions Trophy 2025 in Pakistan was in doubt after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) communicated to the ICC that it had not been permitted by the Indian government to send its team to Pakistan to play the event.
With the ICC siding with the BCCI, the announcement of fixtures of the tournament was delayed. The PCB initially insisted that it would host the entire tournament but later agreed to the hybrid model if ICC and BCCI gave assurance that Pakistan’s matches in future ICC events in India would also be played in a hybrid model.
The ICC and BCCI have finally agreed to their demands, thus paving the way for the Champions Trophy 2025 to go ahead in a hybrid model.
(IANS)
