Who: Bangladesh vs India
What: ICC Champions Trophy 2025
Where: Dubai International Stadium, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
When: Thursday, February 20 at 1pm (09:00 GMT)
Follow Al Jazeera sport’s live text and photo commentary stream of the match.
The favourites to lift the Champions Trophy, India, enter the tournament on Thursday when they face Bangladesh in Dubai.
All of India’s matches will be played in UAE instead of Pakistan, the host nation of the 2025 edition, after reaching an agreement – with regards their participation in the tournament – with the International Cricket Council (ICC) and Pakistan.
Rohit Sharma’s side were defeated finalists in the last ICC one-day international tournament, the 2023 Cricket World Cup, and will still be licking their wounds, to some extent, following their loss to Australia on home soil.
The 2024 T20 World Cup victory will have gone some way to making up for the 50-over failure. A victory in the Champions Trophy, where the host nation and closest rivals, Pakistan, are the second favourites, will only help to vanquish the painful memories of the Australian victory in Ahmedabad.
Why are India favourites to win the Champions Trophy?
India’s position at the top of the ICC’s ODI rankings is the clear reason for their tag as favourites, but the geographical position of the tournament should also play into the Indians’ hands.
With all their matches to be played in UAE, including the final should they reach it, India will be confident that their spin-strong squad will be able to turn their opponents in knots.
India will take this competition fiercely seriously as they look to add to their two previous Champions Trophy victories, in 2002 and 2013, and their two most senior players, Rohit and Virat Kohli, could well be playing in their final tournaments for India. What better way to go out for the respective 37- and 36-year-olds?
What chance do Bangladesh have?
Bangladesh hosted the first Champions Trophy in 1998, although at the time were not eligible to play in the tournament aimed at raising money for non-Test playing nations, as the Tigers were at the time.
They entered the competition in the following edition, where they fell at the first hurdle, but have come a long way since then.
The Tigers reached the quarterfinals of the 2015 Cricket World Cup, but went one better in England two years later by reaching the Champions Trophy semifinals – where they were defeated by India.
Slipping to ninth in the…