Champions Trophy 2025: India will play its matches in Dubai

Champions Trophy 2025 India Tour To UAE

The ICC Champions Trophy 2025 Tournament will begin on 19th February 2025 which is making its return after a break of eight years this time. This is the first time that Pakistan is going to host an International Cricket Council (ICC) Event, and that is to be the Champions Trophy since the last ICC event which was hosted by Pakistan was the 1996 Cricket World Cup, co-hosted with India and Sri Lanka, in which Sri Lanka won the tournament for the first time.

The eight-team Champions Trophy is being held in three cities in Pakistan (Karachi, Lahore, and Rawalpindi) but due to some security concerns India will not be travelling to Pakistan for the tournament; instead, they will be playing all their matches in another country, that is Dubai, UAE. And also, if India qualifies for the semi-finals and finals then it will also be played in Dubai.

Usually, Team Captains of all the participating teams for the ICC Champions Trophy gather for a pre-tournament photo-opening ceremony before the start of the event to keep the gears of thrill high. This typical norm has been continuing since the 2013s or so, but this time around things might be changing slightly as the host of the event is Pakistan.

As a result, many speculations are arising about Team India’s Captain Rohit’s availability for the captains’ photo opening ceremony in Lahore. From sources, it has come to light, revealing that India’s cricket team captain Rohit Sharma and the captains of a few other teams are also unlikely to arrive in Pakistan before the start of the tournament.

Teams such as England and Australia, have instead decided to skip all of their allotted practice matches and will be entering directly into the tournament, opting out of the two practice games which usually each team is entitled to. This decision to forego has been seen as a trend in recent ICC events, like in the 2024 T20 World Cup in the USA and the West Indies, where the teams decided to opt out of the practice matches for similar approaches due to tight schedules. Following this verdict, the opening ceremony was cancelled since the top teams’ schedules for arriving were different.

Given their tight schedules and reasonable challenges, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and International Cricket Council (ICC) have come to a decision that is cancelling the traditional captains’ meet and photoshoot. Now, the teams will be arriving in Pakistan just the days before the tournament begins, making it difficult to hold the usual pre-tournament engagements.

Champions Trophy 2025: Here’s a quick layout of the schedule:-

  • Afghanistan will get to Islamabad on 12th February.
  • Bangladesh and India will reach Dubai on 15th February
  • England and Australia will be in Lahore on the 18th and 19th February
  • New Zealand and South Africa will already be in Pakistan after a tri-nation ODI series in Lahore and Karachi from 8th to 14th February.

Despite this cancellation of the traditional opening ceremony, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) will be hosting a separate official opening ceremony for the renovated Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on 7th February 2025. This inauguration ceremony will be graced by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who has been invited as the chief guest. Another ceremony for the reopening of the National Stadium in Karachi on 11th February 2025 will be graced by President Asif Ali Zardari as the chief guest.

Along with that, there will be also a more reserved regional event at Lahore Fort on 16th February 2025, which will be graced by the presence of some of the top PCB and ICC officials to mark the beginning of the tournament regardless of the cancellation of the opening ceremony.

There have been significant concerns about whether Pakistan is ready for the event or not. Amid these rising concerns over the readiness of Champions Trophy venues, the Gaddafi Stadium will be handed over to the International Cricket Council (ICC) by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on 11TH February, almost over  a week before the start of the champions trophy.

HYBRID MODEL FOR INDIA

Due to security concerns, India will be playing all of their ICC Champions Trophy 2025 matches in Dubai, UAE as part of the hybrid model deal sealed between the ICC (International Cricket Council), PCB (Pakistan Cricket Board) and (Board of Control for Cricket in India) BCCI and if they qualify for the semi-finals and finals, then the teams’ title clash would also be held in the Dubai, UAE city in March.

INDIA V/S PAKISTAN

India has a leading record against Pakistan in most of the World Cup encounters, having won all 8 ODIs of their matches. In T20 World Cup meetings, India has won seven out of eight, with their only loss happening in Dubai in 2021. However, in the ICC Champions Trophy, Pakistan has a slight edge over India, by leading 3-2 in their five meetings.

TEAM INDIA’S SQUAD

  1. Rohit Sharma (CAPTAIN)
  2. Shubman Gill
  3. Virat Kohli
  4. Shreyas Iyer
  5. KL Rahul
  6. Hardik Pandya
  7. Axar Patel
  8. Washington Sundar
  9. Kuldeep Yadav
  10. Jasprit Bumrah
  11. Mohammad Shami
  12. Arshdeep Singh
  13. Yashasvi Jaiswal
  14. Rishabh Pant
  15. Ravindra Jadeja

India’s Group Stage Fixtures:

  1.  20 February – India v/s Bangladesh, Dubai
  2.  23 February – India v/s Pakistan, Dubai
  3.  2 March – India v/s New Zealand, Dubai

CONCLUSION

Despite the absence of an opening ceremony, anticipation for the Champions Trophy 2025 is still high among the fans as teams are busy preparing themselves, for a promise to make this tournament a one-of-kind, full of excitement event while facing each other. As the reigning champions, Pakistan is also gearing up to defend its title by winning against seven teams of the world’s top cricket teams simultaneously while planning for the event. India too is wholeheartedly focusing on improving itself daily and this time, it’s solely determined to win the tournament since in the last edition of the ICC Champions Trophy, India reached the finals but they lost the match to Pakistan. With all this friendly competitive environment among the teams, no doubt it would be full of thrill, keeping fans on edge.