ICC Champions Trophy 2025: India's venue fixed by PCB as ICC asked to fulfil a special demand

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has started its preparations for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025. They have the hosting rights for the competitions and the preparations are in full fledge at the moment.

As per media reports, the PCB has already sent the initial draft schedule of the Champions Trophy to the ICC. They have proposed Lahore, Karachi, and Rawalpindi as the three venues for the marquee event. The upcoming edition of the Champions Trophy is scheduled to take place in February and March next year. 

"We've sent the schedule for the matches in Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy. The ICC's security team came and we had a very good meeting. They looked at arrangements here and we'll also share stadium upgrade plans with them. We're continuously in touch with the ICC. We are trying to ensure we host a very good tournament in Pakistan," PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi told the media last week.

Pakistan won the last edition of the Champions Trophy in 2017 by beating India in the final in England. Later, the ICC scrapped the tournament before bringing it back in the new rights cycle (2023-27) and Pakistan earned the hosting rights for the tournament.

It will be a special tournament for Pakistan as it marks the first ICC event on Pakistani soil in nearly decades. Pakistan last hosted an ICC tournament way back in 1996 when they co-hosted the ODI World Cup along with India and Sri Lanka.

PCB wants India to play all the games at one venue:

While the PCB is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that the tournament takes place smoothly, there are still huge doubts over the competition being held entirely in Pakistan. The reason is their poor bilateral relations with India due to political reasons. India have not visited Pakistan since 2008 and are highly unlikely to do it next year.

Last year, the PCB had to adopt a hybrid model while hosting the Asia Cup. As per the model, some of the games were held in Pakistan while most of the games including all of India's games were played in Sri Lanka. While only time will tell how things unfold in the coming days, it looks like PCB is in no mood to let the Champions Trophy be played outside Pakistan.

According to Pakistani journalist Waheed Khan, the PCB has already requested the ICC to allot all of India's matches at one venue between Lahore, Karachi, and Rawalpindi.

 

The @TheRealPCB has requested @ICC to allot all of India's matches in one venue among Lahore, Karachi and Pindi: News courtesy @cricketbaazwk for @PTI_News
Only thing is if India goes which right now looks unlikely.#CricketTwitter

— Kushan Sarkar (@kushansarkar) May 1, 2024

The BCCI has already made it clear that the decision to play any bilateral series with Pakistan or visit Pakistan depends on the government of India. The BCCI will have to get the green light from the government before sending the team to Pakistan next year.