The 2025 Champions Trophy is facing the trickiest of googlies on the messiest of pitches. As of today, India is not travelling to Pakistan for the eight-nation event. Pakistan, on its part, has dismissed suggestions of a hybrid event as the Asia Cup was hosted in Pakistan and Sri Lanka last year. It’s a stand-off. And the question before a billion-plus people is: Should India travel to Pakistan for cricket as other teams are doing?
To begin with, other teams don’t carry the same baggage of history. And one is not talking about the four wars fought between the two since 1947. This is more about the complexities of the present, about Pakistan relentlessly and unrepentantly weaponising terrorism against India. Hillary Clinton, then US secretary of state, said back in 2011, “You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours.” In recent years, bad karma has come calling. But as a catalogue of its actions underlines, Pakistan doesn’t want to change.