Ex-PCB chief destroys ICC over Champions Trophy 2025 hosting, speaks on India’s ‘unfair advantage’

Former Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Ehsan Mani expressed his disappointment with the way the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 was managed. He said that the things were left to the 11th hour and it was a big blunder by the global body.

The ICC Champions Trophy 2025 concluded last week and it saw India winning the tournament. The tournament was held across two different countries in Pakistan - Lahore, Rawalpindi, Karachi- and United Arab Emirates - Dubai, where the Rohit Sharma-led side played all their games including the semi-final and final.

BCCI didn't agree to send India to Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025

The BCCI didn't agree to send India to Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 and there were a lot of debates related to the same. Both the PCB and the BCCI were involved in a lot of tussling and ultimately it led the ICC to stage the tournament in the hybrid model.

As India played all their games in Dubai, it saw many fans and experts criticizing the India team as well as the ICC. They mentioned that the Men in Blue had an unfair advantage of playing at one venue and the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 was devised in a way to help them win.

This was left to the 11th hour, It was wrong of the ICC not to have dealt with this much, much earlier - Ehsan Mani

Ehsan Mani, who served as PCB chairman from 2018 to 2021, talked about how the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 was staged. He said that ICC was well aware for a long that India won't travel to Pakistan and their approach to deal with the matter in the 11th hour was wrong. Speaking to Hindustan Times, he said:

"It's very disappointing the way it was managed. The responsibility for this is with the ICC. When they allocated events to India and Pakistan, knowing the current relations between the countries, then the onus was entirely on the ICC to ensure that the event and the issues that came up had been dealt with much, much before the tournament actually started,"

"This was left to the 11th hour. It was wrong of the ICC not to have dealt with this much, much earlier. Got both the boards together and come up with an ICC solution, not a PCB or BCCI solution."

The pitch was the same for all the teams playing there - Ehsan Mani

Ehsan Mani also talked about talks of India having an unfair advantage of playing at one venue. He mentioned that the pitch was the same for all the teams playing there and there is no point in being critical. He said:

"The pitch was the same for all the teams playing there. Yes, BCCI played in one ground for all these matches, but that was something that the ICC had decided right from the outset they would do. There's no point of being critical about that later on."

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