PCB Officials Absent from Award Ceremony, Shoaib Akhtar Expresses Anger – Watch Video

New Delhi (The Uttam Hindu): The Indian cricket team won the Champions Trophy title for the third time. Captain Rohit Sharma's brilliant innings of 76 runs and the important contributions of Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya helped India beat New Zealand by four wickets and capture the Champions Trophy 2025. After this historic victory, there is an atmosphere of celebration across the country. At the same time, a controversy arose in Dubai when the Pakistan Cricket Board officials were not invited on the stage by the ICC during the closing ceremony of the Champions Trophy final. A source said that PCB Chief Executive Officer Sumair Ahmed was present at the ground, but he was not invited to the ceremony. He is also the director of the tournament.

The source said, 'PCB Chairman Mohsin Naqvi could not go to Dubai as he had some work as Home Minister, but the CEO of PCB was sent to represent Pakistan in the final and prize distribution.' He said that for some reason or due to misunderstanding, he was not called on the stage from where ICC President Jay Shah, BCCI President Roger Binny and Secretary Devjit Saikia gave medals, trophies and jackets to the players. No representative of host Pakistan was on the stage. PCB can raise this issue with the ICC. The source said that perhaps the CEO could not communicate properly with the ICC people responsible for organizing the final ceremony and that is why he was excluded. Therefore, as the host of the Champions Trophy, Pakistan had no representative on the podium.

Shoaib Akhtar expressed his displeasure.

Former fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar also posted a video on X and said, 'India won the Champions Trophy, but there was no representative of PCB after the final. Pakistan was the host. I don't understand why no one from PCB was there. Why did no one come to give the trophy, why did no one come to represent? This is really beyond my understanding. How can this happen?? Where was the representation of the host country in the final and prize distribution?? You should think seriously about this. It was a world stage. PCB should have been here, but sadly I did not see anyone. I am very sad about this.'