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Encircled By Worrisome Issues, Champions Trophy Could Perhaps Solve The Unsolvable

Bhargav Dixit

Champions Trophy in New Zealand. [Source: @CricCrazyJohns/X]Champions Trophy in New Zealand. [Source: @CricCrazyJohns/X]

2025 Champions Trophy isn’t the first global cricketing event to find itself in controversies pertaining to geopolitics and security concerns right before its start. Post ICC Cricket World Cup 1996, ICC Cricket World Cup 2003 and ICC World Twenty20 2009, it’s going to be the fourth ICC multi-team men’s competition to allure some form of “boycott” calls from member nations.

India, whose stiff-necked and silk-stocking nature hasn’t allowed them to agree to play in Pakistan for the first time in almost 18 years, kick-started the dispute around a tournament which will be played for the first time in almost eight years.

Just after India won the battle around their players’ safety in what is going to be the first ICC event in Pakistan in almost three decades, Taliban imposing further restrictions on women’s participation in public activities (including cricket) has stirred loud and widespread calls for teams needing to boycott matches against them.

2025 Champions Trophy Should Give The Unimpeachable A Fair Chance

If truth be told, India should’ve given the nod for their players to travel to Pakistan. When six other participants (all Test Playing nations) have already travelled to Pakistan for various assignments lately and are willing to do it again for the Champions Trophy, it feels and sounds a bit uncanny for the Indian contingent to be playing in Dubai.

It is for no fault of cricketers or cricket administrators that the sport is suffering in Pakistan. Similarly, it is for no fault of Afghan men’s cricketers or cricket administrators that a team has abandoned all bilateral ties with them or some others are being forced to refrain from playing against them in the imminent global event.

It is worth noting that no one is trying to defend certain unacceptable activities coming out of both Pakistan and Afghanistan. In all honesty, for the sake of a better and all-inclusive world, both of them need to be condemned unconditionally. That being said, punishing innocent person(s) just because one can’t punish the guilty is never recommended.

Even though I’m not a geopolitics expert, playing, following and covering cricket for years has taught me that there’s no greater unifier than sports. For all we know, perhaps blossoming of cricket in Pakistan and Afghanistan could play a small role in solving major unsolvable problems. With some players from both the nations having already become intercontinental stars, here’s hoping for them to encompass abilities capable of finding solutions so that “boycott calls” become a thing of the past in cricket, at least.

With no denying to the pain and sorrow caused by certain unlawful activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan, one must not forget that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. For cricket to not be blind, here’s hoping for sagacious and superintending minds running the sport to give their unimpeachable colleagues a fair chance during ICC Champions Trophy 2025.