The mega clash of ICC Champions Trophy 2025 will be played today between two major rival teams India and Pakistan. The match will start at 2:30 PM at Dubai International Stadium. Both teams now face each other only in ICC and ACC tournaments. The teams will meet after 259 days. The last time they faced each other was during the T-20 World Cup on June 9, 2024. In the ODI format, they last clashed during the ODI World Cup on October 14, 2023. India won both matches. India and Pakistan have met 21 times overall in ICC tournaments, India have an utterly dominant record winning 17 times, while Pakistan have won just 4 times. India not visiting Pakistan since Mumbai terror attacks
The Indian team has not toured Pakistan since 2007-08. After the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, the Indian government banned playing cricket in Pakistan. Since then, both teams only play in ICC and ACC tournaments. Since 2013, both teams have played 11 ODIs and 8 T-20 matches. India dominates in ICC Events
India has established dominance over Pakistan in ICC tournaments. Despite three decades of matches in ODI World Cup, Pakistan has not yet been able to defeat India. India also maintains a lead in T20 World Cup, where the team has won 7 out of 8 matches. India's most memorable victory came in 2007, when the team won the title by defeating Pakistan in the final. However, the story of Champions Trophy has been slightly different, where Pakistan has won three out of their five encounters. This includes their impressive victory in the 2017 final. Pakistan team had come to India for ODI World Cup
Pakistan team had come to India in 2023 to play the ODI World Cup. At that time, India and Pakistan played a match in Ahmedabad on October 14. The Indian team won this match by 7 wickets. Captain Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer had scored fifties. Jasprit Bumrah was named Player of the Match. He took 2 wickets for 19 runs. In this match, both teams had faced each other for the last time in ODI format. Hype builds in ICC tournaments due to lack of bilateral series
India-Pakistan matches have been happening in ICC tournaments since 1992. However, ICC started ensuring India-Pakistan matches in all its tournaments from the 2013 ODI World Cup. Poor relations between the two countries played a major role in this. Since 2013, bilateral series between the two countries stopped due to deteriorating political relations. Now matches are only possible in ICC tournaments. ICC took advantage of this. ICC acknowledges this fact on record. Before the 2013 Champions Trophy, whenever India-Pakistan matches happened in ICC tournaments, coincidence played a big role. In this, both teams clashed 7 times in ODI and T20 World Cups. In 6 of these, they faced each other in knockout rounds or second rounds. Only once, in the 2007 T20 World Cup, did they meet in the group stage. At that time, teams were grouped based on rankings and coincidentally India-Pakistan came in one group. After the bilateral series between the two stopped in 2013, ICC decided that there would definitely be one India-Pakistan match in every tournament to capitalize on the hype.Original Article