Story of the Champions Trophy: ICC leadership bears some guilt.

We are back here once more. Not for the first time most likely not the last.

Scheduled in Pakistan, the 2025 Champions Trophy has under 100 days to go, yet the ICC has not formally revealed the dates for the event. Furthermore unfinished is the schedule. The reason is... One of the eight nations involved, India, will not visit Pakistan; this decision was made by the Indian government, based on BCCI correspondence to the ICC.


Not once but twice, we have been here lately, 2023. Return your memory to the Asia Cup and ODI World Cup from last year to find a similar trend. First of all, the PCB was obliged to change its position that the event would take place just in Pakistan following the BCCI's declaration that India's government denied permission for border crossing. Eventually it was Pakistan, the hosts, who ended up boarding planes to and from Sri Lanka, where India participated in all their matches, including the championship final. Although Pakistan finally made it to India, the PCB pushed to have the ICC embrace the hybrid model at the World Cup. They travelled; it has since come to light even with strong misgivings inside the Pakistan government.

Twelve months later we are once more in familiar territory: the BCCI has moved, coolly occupying one corner with arms folded. The PCB is fixed at the other end, not flitting or budging. The ICC, in theory the adjudicator, keeps quiet. There is a shambolic scenario here.

From this brinkmanship, who really benefits? That captures only one aspect of the inquiry. The more crucial question, though, one that never gets asked properly is: who is accountable for this standoff? Unquestionably, the answer is the ICC, the body in charge of running the game, which has once more escaped examination. More precisely, the ICC leadership consists of the ICC board.


The ICC board distributed hosting rights for several global events in the 2024-31 rights cycle to several boards in November 2021. Originally bidding for two events, the PCB received the 2025 Champions Trophy. Recommendations generated by a smaller working group comprising Sourav Ganguly, then the BCCI president, and Ehsan Mani, the former PCB chairman and ICC head, helped the ICC board approve the hosts. Greg Barclay chaired that ICC board. Ganguly, one would expect, had support from the Indian board, whose secretary is Jay Shah (who will be ICC chairman starting December 1).
Reminder: Along with an independent director, three directors representing the Associates, and the ICC chairman and CEO, the ICC board consists of directors representing the twelve Full Members. This was, then, a call to all. Details of any single voice of caution three years ago regarding the Champions Trophy allocation to Pakistan have never surfaced. Was this not something anyone expected? Perhaps they did, but chose to glance down or the other way instead.



You didn't need to be a fortune-teller to raise a red flag about whether India would really visit Pakistan in 2025 in the tense political environment that has existed between the two neighbours since the Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008. More than one person engaged in the bids allocation process claimed, one reason the ICC board thought conditions might be favourable for India to visit for the Champions Trophy was if Pakistan visited India for the 2023 World Cup - which they did. And once they did, the PCB had to have assumed India would reciprocate.



In a professional setting, though, you must be responsible rather than depending just on good faith. Starting with an official timeline including deadlines, with one particularly for the BCCI, why did the ICC, in 2021, not attach a few conditions when it awarded the Champions Trophy to Pakistan? One could have scheduled a such a hard stop, say, one year before the actual event. Without any such cut-off, the BCCI sent its first correspondence to the ICC stating India would not be visiting around November 6. That is little more than three months before the tournament's planned February 19 start.