England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chiefs are assured an answer may be discovered if India doesn’t journey to Pakistan for the 2025 Champions Trophy, including that India’s participation is critical to guard the match’s broadcast rights.
Pakistan, which gained the final version of the Champions Trophy in England in 2017, will host the February 19-March 9 match.
On account of soured political relations, India has not visited Pakistan since 2008 and the rivals play one another solely at multi-team occasions.
Pakistan additionally hosted the Asia Cup final yr however eventual winner India performed all its matches in Sri Lanka below what the organisers known as a “hybrid mannequin”. On the time, India stated it didn’t get permission from its authorities to tour Pakistan.
The Board of Management for Cricket in India (BCCI) vice-president Rajeev Shukla stated final month the ultimate choice over whether or not India will journey to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy can be taken by the nation’s authorities.
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“I do know Pakistan expect India to journey,” ECB chief Richard Gould instructed reporters on Wednesday.
Gould and ECB chair Richard Thompson are in Pakistan for England’s three-Take a look at collection and have met with Pakistan Cricket Board officers in the course of the ongoing second take a look at in Multan.
“There are many totally different options and contingencies obtainable if that doesn’t occur. I wouldn’t have thought (it will be performed with out India), as a result of should you play the Champions Trophy with out India the published rights aren’t there, and we have to defend them.
“Hopefully, we will have the fullest potential competitors in Pakistan.”
Thompson stated he was assured all concerned events might come to an understanding, pointing to the perimeters’ assembly on the Twenty20 World Cup in the USA this yr.
“There’s geopolitics, after which there’s cricketing geopolitics. I feel they’ll discover a method. They should discover a method,” Thompson added.
“There are at all times safety considerations on this a part of the world when these two international locations play one another. That may most likely drive the important thing choices.
“However I do know relationships between the 2 international locations are as amicable as they are often in the intervening time, we noticed it play out on the (males’s T20) World Cup in New York.”