ICC Champions Trophy 2025: PCB raises a fresh demand, tournament at risk

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is all set to compensate the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) because of India's refusal to travel to Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025. The decision has been taken in the Board of Governors meeting.

BCCI announced last month that India would not travel to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy. The BCCI claimed that they didn't get the required permission from their country's government which cancelled India's travel.

Since then, the ICC has been mulling various options to allow India to participate in the tournament. Organizing the tournament through a hybrid model is one of those options and the ICC is likely to announce a final decision in the upcoming days.

Also read: ICC Champions Trophy 2025: Pakistan defies everyone, involves Saudi Arabia

ICC to compensate PCB after India's refusal to travel to Pakistan

According to the local reports in Pakistan, the ICC is ready to compensate the PCB for India's refusal to travel for the tournament. The ICC will give Pakistan the hosting rights for an additional event which will be separate from the women's tournament.

If these demands are not met, the PCB officials have threatened to take critical measures. It means that the ICC will have to award hosting rights for any of its tournaments to Pakistan in the near future.

For India’s refusal to visit Pakistan for the Champions Trophy, the ICC will compensate PCB by awarding it the hosting rights for an additional event, apart from the Women’s tournament. Pakistani officials have reportedly issued a threat of taking extreme measures if their…

— Saleem Khaliq (@saleemkhaliq) December 19, 2024

While the ICC has promised to award the hosting rights, it remains to be seen which tournament Pakistan gets to host. Another important thing will be to see whether India can travel to Pakistan for that tournament or not.

Where will the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 take place?

The whole Champions Trophy 2025 was slated to be held in Pakistan but India's refusal changed everything. All the other participating teams do not have problems traveling to Pakistan except India.

Keeping India out of the tournament is not an option since the broadcaster's revenue mostly relies on India's matches. The ICC suggested a hybrid model for the tournament which the PCB opposed earlier. PCB was adamant not to let the tournament go outside Pakistan.

However, PCB chief Mohsin Naqvi has reportedly agreed to the hybrid model after realizing that there is no other option left. But he has asked for a fusion model, according to which Pakistan will also not travel to India for the future ICC tournaments and instead play its matches in a hybrid model.

While the BCCI has reportedly accepted this model, they are still reluctant to allow Pakistan to play in any other country outside the group stage. It remains to be seen how the ICC deals with such a precarious situation.

Asia Cup 2023 also organized in a hybrid model

The Asia Cup 2023 was also slated to be hosted by Pakistan. However, India's refusal to travel forced the tournament to be hosted in a hybrid model. As a result, India played all its matches in Sri Lanka, including the final.

India has not traveled to Pakistan since the 2008 Asia Cup. However, Pakistan has made repeated travels to India, most recently in the ODI World Cup 2023. The last bilateral series between these nations was played in 2013, where both teams played and ODI and a T20I series.