India will play Bangladesh in their opening game of the Champions Trophy 2025. Dubai International Cricket Stadium will host the match and ahead of that, check out the pitch report.
India will host Bangladesh in the opening game of the Champions Trophy 2025 at Dubai International Cricket Stadium. The Men in Blue defeated England 3-0 in the recently concluded ODI series and will be full of confidence before taking on the Najmul Shanto-led side on February 20. Interestingly, Bangladesh suffered a humiliating defeat to Pakistan Shaheen in the warm-up match, which arguably have put them under more pressure.
The Men in Blue will miss Jasprit Bumrah in the marquee tournament as Harshit Rana replaced him in the 15-member squad. The Rohit Sharma-led side also named five spinners in the squad, which was a surprising decision, given that two pacers, Harshit and Arshdeep Singh don’t have enough experience of playing ODI cricket.
Bangladesh, on the other hand, have struggled with the bat as of late. The absence of Tamim Iqbal, Shakib Al Hasan and Mahmudullah have bothered their team composition. However, Bangladesh would be eyeing to cause an upset, similar to what they did in the 2007 ODI World Cup in West Indies.
Dubai International Cricket Stadium Pitch Report:
The stadium recently hosted ILT20 and due to the same, the surface is expected to support the spinners. However, the pitch curator recently commented, saying that the surface will offer assistance to both pacers and spinners. Dew can also play a massive part in the second half of the game and for the same reason, bowling first will be the ideal thing to do. It can be a cloudy day and depending on that, India can finalise the number of pacers they play.
Dubai International Cricket Stadium – The ODI Numbers Game
Matches India Played – 06
Matches India Won – 05
Matches India Lost – 00
Draw – 01
Matches Bangladesh played – 03
Matches Bangladesh Won – 01
Matches Bangladesh Lost – 02
Highest Team Innings – 355/5 (England) vs Pakistan
Lowest Team Innings – 91/10 (Namibia) vs UAE
Full squads:
Bangladesh Squad: Soumya Sarkar, Tanzid Hasan, Najmul Hossain Shanto (c), Jaker Ali (wk), Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Taskin Ahmed, Tanzim Hasan Sakib, Nahid Rana, Mustafizur Rahman, Towhid Hridoy, Rishad Hossain, Parvez Hossain Emon, Nasum Ahmed
India Squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Varun Chakravarthy, Arshdeep Singh, Rishabh Pant, Washington Sundar
