ICC Champions Trophy semi-final to be held at Dubai International Stadium

The ICC Champions Trophy is a cricket tournament organized by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It includes eight top cricket teams. The 2025 ICC Champions Trophy is scheduled to run from February 19 to March 9. The tournament will be held in Pakistan, the winner of the last competition, with the final and semi-final matches taking place in Dubai, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

According to the format, the eight best teams from the ICC ODI and World Cup 2023, including the hosts Pakistan, will play fifteen matches. The teams are divided into groups. Group A will include India, Pakistan, New Zealand and Bangladesh. Group B will include Afghanistan, Australia, England and South Africa. The two best national teams from each group will advance to the semi-finals. From 2025 onwards, the top eight teams from the most recent Cricket World Cup automatically qualify for the Champions Trophy.

As of January 2025, Pakistan is ranked fifth in the Test rankings, sixth in the ODI rankings and fourth in the Twenty20 rankings, but in 2017 it was the Pakistan national team that defeated a clearly stronger India to become champions. The team will participate in this tournament with five batsmen, two wicket-keepers, three rounders and seven bowlers, and Pakistan will continue to be captained by Mohammad Rizwan. Rizwan is a wicket-keeper, a right-arm player who is very hard-working. During his Test career, he played thirty-nine matches and scored 2,273 runs, averaging forty-one runs per match. He has a number of awards to his name, including the PCB Most Valuable Player of the Year 2021 and the ICC T20I Cricketer of the Year 2021. Rizwan is the only player to have scored two thousand runs in a calendar year in T20 and has also scored a century in all three formats – Tests, One Day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals. In October 2024, Rizwan was appointed captain of the Pakistan national cricket team in the One Day Internationals and Twenties 20s formats.

Tickets for the semi-finals of the ICC Champions Trophy at the Dubai International Stadium - an opportunity to see the performances of the strongest cricket teams around the world, as well as support your favorite team in the fight for a prestigious trophy.