Champions Trophy: India Sets Rules, Pakistan Faces Heat

One of the most significant power moves happened in world cricket today with Jay Shah taking charge as the ICC Chairman. This essentially means that India’s dominance in the global cricketing arena is cemented beyond any doubt. Incidentally, this comes as a dagger to the heart for the Pakistan Cricket Board which has been adamant about the forthcoming Champions Trophy.

Going into the story, Pakistan is supposed to host the Champions Trophy from coming February and related arrangements got underway. However, the BCCI is least interested in this proposal and cited the obvious threat to Indian players and traveling members in Pakistan as the reason behind their reluctance to travel to the country.

India proposed a hybrid model, where they would play their games in UAE while Pakistan can host the rest of the games in their country. Pakistan was briefly adamant about this and vowed to banish the tournament if the hybrid model gets finalized.

However, now that India’s Jay Shah is the ICC chairman, India’s position gets strategically improved in the international arena. In this context, the ICC has issued an ultimatum to Pakistan cricket, saying they could get excluded from the tournament if they don’t accept the hybrid model.

Pakistan is now left with only two options – either approve the hybrid model and let India play in UAE, or step out of the tournament and incur huge losses with the broadcast rights deals signed already. The chances are that they could go ahead with the hybrid model.

Once that is done, India will play all of its champions trophy games in UAE. It appears that India has affirmatively said Pushpa’s famous dialogue “Thaggedhe Le” to Pakistan board and the latter is having to comply with the same.