Champions Trophy: Opening ceremony cancelled, Rohit Sharma not to visit Pakistan

Though Pakitan is organising the ICC Champions Trophy 2025, the mega event will be hosted in a hybrid model and India will play all their matches in Dubai due to strained political relationship between the arch-rivals.

However, there was question mark over Team India captain Rohit Sharma’s visit for the pre-tournament press conference and photo shoot.

Now, it has been learnt that the opening ceremony of Champions Trophy in Pakistan reportedly got cancelled due to England and Australia’s scheduling. Rohit Sharma too won’t go to Pakistan.

As per reports, Rohit and the captains of a few other teams are also unlikely to reach Pakistan before the start of the tournament therefore prompting PCB to cancel the captains’ photoshoot and press conference altogether.

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As per source close to Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), traditional pre-tournament events, including the press conference featuring all eight captains and the official photo shoot in Karachi, have also been cancelled. Indian captain Rohit Sharma will not be travelling to Karachi for the captains’ conference, dispelling earlier speculations from Indian media.

Though ICC and the PCB were interested in hosting an opening ceremony for mega event, due to England and Australia’s tight schedules and the need to manage player workloads, organizing an opening event was deemed unfeasible.