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It will be eight years since the cricketing world has witnessed an ICC Champions Trophy competition by the time Pakistan plays host in early 2025. Pakistan come into the tournament as the defending champions, after winning their maiden ICC Champions Trophy title at the 2017 tournament staged in England and Wales.
Despite previously cancelling the concept of the ICC Champions Trophy, the ICC has now opted against having a single tournament for every format of international cricket. Islamabad will be one of the main venues for the tournament, with a new state-of-the-art stadium constructed especially for this event.
The venue for some of the other matches remains up in the air. That’s because it’s not yet known if India will be sending its team to Pakistan to participate. India haven’t played in Pakistan since 2008 and off-field tensions remain somewhat high. Currently, the ICC has scheduled India to play all of their competitive games at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. This should please the likes of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma since it’s one of the best batting surfaces in Pakistan. If India do enter, they will be considered the team to beat if the status quo remains.
The latest cricket odds suggest that the Indian national team have what it takes to prevail in their arch rivals’ backyard. They are currently priced as short as 3.00 to lift the trophy, with the likes of Australia (4.50) and England (4.75) also expected to have a major say in proceedings. However, both the Aussies and the English historically struggle in subcontinent conditions.
Why India are everyone’s favourites for the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy
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We’ve just mentioned that England and Australia are more likely to struggle to get to grips with the pitches of the subcontinent. At the other end of the spectrum, these pitches are the bread and butter for the Indian national team. The entire squad was brought up on dry, dusty, turning wickets, which should ensure they can handle whatever anyone throws at them.
The counter to this argument is that Australia were able to defeat India in their own back yard in last year’s ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup final. In Ahmedabad, the Australians held India to just 240 all out in 50 overs, which the Aussies knocked off with six wickets in-hand and seven overs to spare.
A quick glance at the 2023 World Cup batting averages and it’s easy to see that India are heavily reliant on a few players at one-day level. Both Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma topped the charts for most runs scored last year, with the latter catching the eye of Australian model Ashley River. Meanwhile Mohammed Shami took the most wickets (24) in the tournament from just seven innings. If Kohli and Sharma fail to replicate their 2023 World Cup form next year, this opens the door greatly to Australia, England and co.
England being third favourites may feel somewhat unrealistic at present, not just because of their poor record in Pakistan but their lowly one-day international (ODI) world ranking. They currently sit sixth in the ODI rankings, with Sri Lanka now inching above them in the ratings.
Using the ICC’s ODI ratings and rankings, South Africa could be one of the dark horses for the tournament next year. They are only narrowly behind India and Australia as the third-best ODI team in the world right now, despite having played several games less than the other two nations.
Historically, the Proteas have failed to come alive in ICC competitions, but their big-game players can take matches away from the opposition in a blink of an eye. The likes of Quinton de Kock, Kagiso Rabada and skipper, Aiden Markram, are all star quality.
With less than six months now until the tournament, all eyes will be transfixed on the warm-up matches of each nation to see which team has it in them to go all the way in Pakistan.