Shahid Afridi has come out in support of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on their stance for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025. He said that if India cannot come to play in their country, then there is no point for Pakistan to go and play there.
India National Cricket Team have declined to travel to Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025. They have cited the security threat and have asked for the tournament to be played in the hybrid model with India games to be played in the United Arab Emirates.
PCB has agreed to accept the hybrid mode for ICC Champions Trophy 2025 but has kept four demands
Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has agreed to accept the hybrid model after the pressure from the ICC. However, they have kept four demands in front of the ICC and the BCCI as compensation, and this has delayed the final decision related to the ICC Champions Trophy 2025, with the tournament around the corner.
One of the demands that the Pakistan Cricket Board has kept is they want all the ICC events in India to be played in the Hybrid model. This is because they believe that they don’t want to visit India if the Men In Blue don’t want to come to Pakistan to play in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.
Pakistan cricket should be strong and self sufficient and take strong principled decisions – Shahid Afridi sees no reason for Pakistan to go to India
Shahid Afridi believes that Pakistan Cricket should be strong and self-sufficient. He batted for the Pakistan team, not traveling to India for ICC events. He added that the ball is now in the court of the ICC to decide things. Speaking at the Urdu conference at the Karachi Arts Council, he said:
“Pakistan cricket should be strong and self sufficient and take strong principled decisions. If India can’t come and play in Pakistan then there is no reason for us to go and play any event in India,”
“Even the ICC now has to decide whether its responsibility is to ensure every member nation gets to play cricket or it just wants to make money.”
We don’t have a system to identify players and groom them properly – Shahid Afridi
Shahid Afridi also talked about the biggest problem in Pakistan Cricket. He said that the policy of the team changes with every new chairman. While citing the example of Shaheen Afridi, he explained:
“When Shaheen was made Pakistan T20 captain, I was against it, and I said that the board should have made Muhammad Rizwan the captain as he was the best choice. But once they made Shaheen captain it was also wrong for the PCB to remove him as captain after just one series. It affected him.”
Shahid Afridi also mentioned that Pakistan doesn’t have a system to identify young players and groom them properly. He added:
“We have a lot of talent in Pakistan but we also lose so much of this talent because we don’t have a system to identify such players and groom them properly,”
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