KARACHI / LAHORE: The International Cricket Council (ICC) will announce the itinerary of the Champions Trophy Tour through its own channels after it is finalised, sources close to the sport’s global governing body told Dawn on Friday.

The development rebuts the itinerary of the Tour announced by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) a day earlier, revealing the northern towns of Murree, Hunza, Skardu and Muzaffarabad as the venues.

Sources said that ICC was “still in discussions on the final plan of the Trophy Tour and its schedule will be announced via ICC channels”.

According to reports on Indian media on Friday, the Board of Control for Cricket was irked by the choice of Tour’s venues and had raised the issue with the ICC.

Sources close to the PCB told Dawn that the board will make adjustments to the Tour’s itinerary as per the ICC’s instructions.

Personnel close to the situation, however, also claim that the PCB’s announcement had the ICC’s approval behind it.

Sources added that the PCB’s was already in discussions with the ICC on how to proceed with the Trophy Tour to ensure the tournament is promoted well.

It is understood that the Tour, to start from Islamabad on Saturday, will see Skardu, Muzaffarabad and Hunza replaced by Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi.

The issue adds fuel to the controversies surrounding the ICC Champions Trophy, scheduled to be hosted by Pakistan from February 19 to March 9 next year.

With the tournament hardly three months away, India has communicated its refusal to cross the border for it to the ICC — citing the country’s government’s disapproval — before the ICC forwarded the correspondence to the PCB on Sunday.

After the communication was made public by PCB officials, the matter is now in the hands of the Pakistan government, which will decide the country’s stance against India’s position.

As reported by Dawn on Monday, one of the options the federal government is mulling is asking the PCB to withdraw the national side from participating in the tournament — with speculations rife that it may be shifted outside the country.

Meanwhile, the PCB — which has asked the ICC to take in writing from the BCCI, India’s reasons behind their stance — has also ruled out the possibility of a hybrid model.

Amid political tensions between the two neighbours, the BCCI has stood firm by the Indian government’s policy of not engaging with Pakistan in terms of bilateral cricket over the years.

However, after having played the last bilateral series against each other in 2012, Pakistan and India have competed in ICC tournaments and the Asia Cup.

Pakistan, in fact, visited India to feature in the ICC World Cup last year.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2024