Newly appointed Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Devajit Saikia has given a massive update on Rohit Sharma's chances of traveling to Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 captain's meeting. He said they have not decided anything . related to him yet.
The ICC Champions Trophy 2025 is once again marred by the BCCI-PCB controversy. After the hybrid model has finally been accepted for the tournament, the talk is now on whether Indian national cricket team captain Rohit Sharma will travel to Pakistan for the media engagement and captain's photo shoot.
Rohit Sharma too expected to travel to Pakistan for captains' meet, BCCI refuses to send skipper – Reports
As per ICC policy, the captains of all participating teams gather before any opening ceremony of the ICC event and talk about their plans and goals. Apart from that, they also pose with the Trophy before the event. And during the 2023 ICC World Cup, Pakistan skipper Babar Azam did the same.
Rohit Sharma was also expected to travel to Pakistan but there were reports recently claiming that the BCCI refused to send their captain. The PCB also reacted to the reports saying that “BCCI is bringing politics into cricket which is not at all good for the game”.
Apart from all the reports, BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia spoke about Rohit Sharma's trip to Pakistan. He said that they have not decided on this yet and the call will be taken soon. Speaking of the same, he said:
“Whether Rohit Sharma travels to Pakistan for ICC media engagements is something that is yet to be decided.”
BCCI must consider if Rohit Sharma visits Pakistan for regular photo shoot and pre-event press conference
Reports in PTI claim that sending Rohit Sharma to Pakistan is still under discussion. It is learned that there are certain issues that the BCCI needs to consider if its captain visits Pakistan for the usual photo shoot and pre-event press conference.
There were several other sections of the reports claiming that the BCCI had asked the ICC to transfer the commitments of the captains ahead of the UAE tour. But it will be a very difficult thing to do considering all the other teams will be playing the matches in Pakistan.
India will play all their matches in the UAE during the ICC Champions Trophy 2024. Their opening match will be played against the Bangladesh national cricket team on February 20, followed by matches against the Pakistan national cricket team and the New Zealand cricket on February 23 and March 2 respectively. They would be keen to win the title as they lost to Pakistan in the final of the tournament last time in 2017.