PCB offers India to stay in Chandigarh and play in Pakistan for CT 2025: Reports

In a new turn of events, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has gone all-out to try and keep the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 entirely in the country, even if it means giving India an option to fly out from Pakistan back to either Chandigarh or Delhi after every match and return only on the playing days, according to a report by Cricibuzz. 

This way, the security concerns of the Indian team could be addressed and the event, which would be Pakistan’s first ever ICC tournament as a host since 1996, could be entirely played in the South Asian nation. 

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The development came after India’s foreign minister, S Jaishankar, visited Pakistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Islamabad. It was during this that Mr Jaishankar interacted with Ishaq Dar his Pakistani counterpart and was joined in by Mohsin Naqvi, who is PCB chairman as well as minister of internal affairs and culture in the Pakistan government. 

Though the schedule for the tournament is yet to be shared officially by the ICC as well as the PCB, it is being assumed that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh would be in the same group along with New Zealand. All of India’s matches will be played in Lahore, only 50 kilometres away from Amritsar and 250 from Chandigarh. Thus, travelling between the two countries for the Indian team could be done easily. 

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Alongside Lahore, Rawalpindi and Karachi are the other three venues for the marquee tournament. India have not travelled to Pakistan since the 2008 Asia Cup. 

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