Greg Barclay on Afghanistan: “We will continue to support them as a member and encourage them to continue to take an inclusive approach to cricket”
The ICC is “comfortable and confident” that the 2025 Champions Trophy, scheduled to be held in Pakistan, will go ahead as planned.
Asked whether the ICC was confident that teams would travel to Pakistan, the governing body’s chairman, Greg Barclay, said, “From what we can see, absolutely. There has been international cricket in Pakistan for a few years, all of it with the exception of what happened in the last few weeks.
“We wouldn’t have awarded the event if we didn’t think Pakistan was capable of hosting it. We think it is an exciting opportunity for them to be able to host a world event for the first time in a long time. I’m sure, as with all countries, they will put together appropriate security plans to deliver the event. We’re comfortable and confident it will go ahead.”
After the 1996 ODI World Cup, Pakistan was scheduled to host the Champions Trophy in 2008, but the event was postponed because of a deteriorating security situation in the country around that time. That culminated – for cricket at least – with the attacks on the Sri Lanka team in Lahore in March 2009, which led to the Champions Trophy being moved to South Africa. It also meant Pakistan losing out on a co-hosting spot for the 2011 50-over World Cup.
Over the last few years, however, an increasing number of countries have played bilateral series in the country, including West Indies, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, South Africa and a World XI. A number of foreign players have also played in Pakistan for franchises in the PSL.
Both countries, however, are working towards a schedule to visit in 2022. At the same time, Cricket Australia has confirmed it would – as things stand – fulfil its commitment to a first tour of Pakistan since 1998-99 in February next year.
What will be out of the ICC’s control, however, is the status of India in Pakistan. Pakistan have played in India – in the 2011 World Cup as well as the 2016 T20 World Cup – but India’s last match in Pakistan was all the way back at the 2008 Asia Cup.
Thakur, the Indian sports minister, expressed apprehensions about his country’s participation in the 2025 event. And Barclay acknowledged, there was little the ICC could do about it.
“We know it’s a challenging issue,” Barclay said. “From my point of view, I can’t control geo-political forces. I just hope cricket can be a force to help improve relations between countries. One of the great things sports can do is to help bring nations together. If we can do something in a small way to contribute to that, that’s fantastic.”
Afghanistan ‘a challenging situation’
Also out of the ICC’s control is the status of women’s cricket in Afghanistan. Ever since the Taliban assumed power in the country in August, there’s been a lack of clarity around women’s cricket in the country; the Taliban’s position on women’s rights have always been regressive.
A functioning women’s cricket programme, however, is a criteria Full Members of the ICC have to fulfil. There have been calls for Afghanistan’s status to be rescinded because of the implications of the Taliban rule on women’s cricket; Australia cancelled a Test they were due to play this season against Afghanistan for this reason.
Barclay said the position for now would be to continue monitoring the situation, though he indicated that there were some signs from the country of a commitment to women’s cricket.
“There are certain criteria any country needs to comply with to remain a member of the ICC,” he said. “At present we haven’t seen any transgression so we will continue to support them as a member and encourage them to continue to take an inclusive approach to cricket.
“It is a challenging situation. It was before August as well. All we can do is to continue monitoring the situation. Hopefully things will settle down, we’ll be able to see women’s cricket continue to grow. We accept it’s coming off a very low base, there’s cultural and religious reasons for that. There were slow but perceptible progress being made prior to August. We’d like to see that continue. We’re getting some messages that will be the case, that a commitment will be made to women’s game so let’s just wait and see.”