Cricket’s most storied but, many will argue, frankly over-hyped rivalry will renew itself for the first time in 18 months when India play Pakistan here at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium in game five of the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy.
These two teams draw the most commercial interest when they meet at ICC and ACC events – the last time India met Pakistan in a bilateral series was 2013 – and these tournaments are blatantly scheduled to give both the maximum chances of meeting each other, given what the broadcasters gain financially. But barring two instances in the past 16 years, the cricket has been rather one-sided in India’s favour.
Pakistan are already staring at an early exit after losing their opening match to New Zealand in Karachi. They are down a man in Fakhar Zaman, whose injury on Wednesday has deprived the team of its second first-choice opener following the untimely injury to Saim Ayub in Australia. The man to have replaced Fakhar is Imam-ul-Haq, another opener in the go-slow mold that Babar Azam is currently batting in.
Now in Dubai, where over the years they have won just eight out of 22 ODI games, they face not just the odds at this venue, but the odds stacked against them on form and reputation.
In the past two weeks, Pakistan have lost three ODIs to New Zealand at home. At ICC events, spanning the white-ball formats, India own a 17-4 record against Pakistan. Whether or not Mohammad Rizwan’s team can draw confidence from the fact that three of Pakistan’s four victories over India at ICC tournaments have come at the Champions Trophy, including the final in 2017, remains to be seen. Defeat to India in Dubai will almost eliminate them from the tournament.
Based on India versus Bangladesh here in Dubai on Thursday, the surface is far from easy to bat on and spin will have a say. To that extent, India hold another advantage in having five spinners to call on. In his opening over of the match, Axar Patel should have had the first hat-trick at an ICC Champions Trophy since Jerome Taylor in 2016 except that his skipper Rohit Sharma dropped a dolly at first slip.
Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav went wicketless, but the fact that all three of India’s spinners conceded 123 runs from 29 overs underlines the role that slowing the ball down on this Dubai surface has.
Where Pakistan can seek to make inroads is in bowling their legspinner Abrar Ahmed as soon as Virat Kohli walks to the crease, no matter what over it is. Kohli was out twice in two innings to England’s Rashid Khan recently, and against Bangladesh he looked a mess against their spinners before cutting a short ball from Rishad Hossain to the fielder at cover-point.
India have issues of their own, after allowing Bangladesh to recover from 35/5 to 228 and then making a chase of 229 far trickier than it looked, courtesy a very painful innings of 22 from 38 balls from Kohli and the needless dismissals of Rohit, Shreyas Iyer and Axar. But man to man, in the batting and bowling, as well as on ODI form, they hold the edge over Pakistan.
The way Mohammed Shami roared back with five wickets against Bangladesh, in the process becoming the fastest man to 200 ODI wickets, just shows what an asset he is to India. Harshit Rana took three wickets in his first ICC event, and there is Hardik Pandya as well.
In comparison, Pakistan have Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf and Mohammad Hasnain. Each terrific on their day, in that order, but erratic and unpredictable. In Dubai, spin appears the way to go but Pakistan don’t appear to have the required firepower in Abrar, left-armer Khushdil Shah and offspinner Salman Agha.
Indeed, cricket is a funny game, the Champions Trophy a very fickle format and Pakistan a mercurial and unpredictable team. But as far as this game here in Dubai goes, it does appear as if India have all bases covered to make it 18-4 at ICC white-ball tournaments.
India probable XI: 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 Axar Patel, 6 KL Rahul (wk), 7 Hardik Pandya, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Arshdeep Singh
Pakistan probable 11: 1 Imam-ul-Haq, 2 Babar Azam, 3 Saud Shakeel, 4 Mohammad Rizwan (capt/wk), 5 Salman Agha, 6 Tayyab Tahir, 7 Khushdil Shah, 8 Shaheen Shah Afridi, 9 Naseem Shah, 10 Haris Rauf, 11 Abrar Ahmed
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