Category World News

Who: Pakistan vs India

What: ICC Champions Trophy 2025
Where: Dubai International Stadium, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
When: Sunday, February 23 at 1pm (09:00 GMT)
Follow Al Jazeera’s live text and photo commentary stream of the match.

The host nation – and second favourites – Pakistan face the team tipped to win the tournament, India, at the Champions Trophy on Sunday in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The two rival countries, who are competing on television and in other media, have undoubtedly become the biggest stars in world sport.

Beyond the fierce rivalry between the two cricketing giants and neighboring nations, where is there always a lot at stake, with Pakistan losing by 60 runs in their opening match on Wednesday against New Zealand. India, conversely, opened with a six-wicket win against Bangladesh&nbsp, on Thursday.

Why doesn’t India play in Pakistan?

All of India’s matches will be played in UAE instead of Pakistan, the host nation of the 2025 edition. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the International Cricket Council (ICC) agreed that both countries would play all ICC events that were held in either country at neutral venues until 2027, following which the agreement was reached.

When was the last time Pakistan hosted a major tournament?

Following the 2009 shooting by gunmen on the Sri Lankan cricket team’s bus in Lahore, which seriously injured six players, international cricket in Pakistan has been severely restricted in recent years.

The Champions Trophy is the first major global tournament to be held in Pakistan in nearly 30 years, and the top teams were criticized for it after the attack. Pakistan hosted the Cricket World Cup in 2006, the last time they hosted a global matchup together with India.

Why are defending champions Pakistan not the favourites?

In 2017, Pakistan won the Champions Trophy’s final against India, but the defeated finalists are the tournament’s favorites based on their consistency since then.

Babar Azam and Shaheen Shah Afridi, two former Pakistani captains, have been key match-winning players, but their reputation has already deteriorated as a result.

Off-field turbulence continues to be a major issue, as well: Gary Kirsten was appointed white ball coach last year, but he abruptly resigned and was replaced by Jason Gillespie, who was then coaching for Tests. The former Australian bowler quickly reacted to his South African predecessor by standing down, which made the players seem like they were both well-known.

How much will Pakistan need to overcome if they want to win the trophy on their own soil is highlighted by the opening defeat by New Zealand, which saw the batting force through the chase.

What makes India the champions of the title race?

In their opening game against Bangladesh, India did more than they had anticipated. Towhid Hridoy’s century should only have delayed the inevitable, but without Shubman Gill’s century in pursuit of 229, India could have been in deep trouble.

Rohit Sharma’s side reached the final of the last ICC one-day international tournament, where they were defeated by Australia at the 2023 Cricket World Cup. The players and their supporters struggled to accept the defeat, especially since Ahmedabad is on its own soil.

The 2024 T20 World Cup victory softened the blow to some extent but a victory in the Champions Trophy to deny the host nation and rivals, Pakistan, back-to-back crowns will be a sweet return for Rohit’s men.

What are Pakistan and India’s records in the Champions Trophy?

Pakistan’s victory in the final against India in 2017 is their only triumph in the competition. India have twice claimed victory in the Champions Trophy, in 2002 and 2013.

Form guide – Pakistan

Following two losses in the pre-tournament tri-series with South Africa, New Zealand suffered their third straight defeat. However, Pakistan’s surprisingly strong form during travel will help them win the tournament, so a match in Dubai might be a boon. On their travels, the men in green won the last three bilateral ODI series. A 2-1 triumph over world champions Australia was the highlight, but the 3-0 trouncing of a formidable South Africa side is not to be underestimated.

Form guide – India

India’s dominance in ODIs took a recent dip with a 2-0 defeat in the three-match series against Sri Lanka last August. Their final series was that of England before the start of their tour earlier this month.

As well as Gill’s moment of brilliance in the opening match against Bangladesh, the 3-0 series whitewash was a huge blow to England but also provided a significant boost for the Men in Blue on the eve of the tournament.

Last five ODI matches

• Pakistan: W L W L L
• India: L W W W W

Pakistan team news

Pakistan’s Champions Trophy hopes were not only hit by the defeat by New Zealand on Wednesday, but also the tournament-ending injury for Fakhar Zaman.

Virat Kohli and his team chased after the opening batter bravely strode to the middle, but the 34-year-old was clearly hampered by his chest injury, who was ruled out of a return to the team this year.

Imam-ul-Haq has taken his place in the squad.

India team news

India’s performance in the opening game against Bangladesh is likely to remain unchanged. The spin trio of Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, and Axar Patel will be looked to on the tweaker-friendly surface in Dubai.

Arshdeep Singh was chosen ahead of Harshit Rana to take Jasprit Bumrah’s place in Mohammed Shami’s opening act. India is anticipated to make this choice once more.

Pakistan squad

Squad: Mohammad Rizwan (captain), Salman Ali Agha (vice captain), Babar Azam, Fakhar Zaman, Kamran Ghulam, Saud Shakeel, Tayyab Tahir, Faheem Ashraf, Khushdil Shah, Usman Khan, Abrar Ahmed, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Hasnain, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi

India squad

Berlin/Cottbus, Germany – Germany is preparing for high-stakes elections, amid fears that far-right sentiment rising while migration policies sit at the centre of political debate.

In Cottbus, a city in eastern Brandenburg, the mood is tense as voters prepare to head to the polls&nbsp, with the rest of Germany on February 23 after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition government led by his Social Democratic Party (SPD) collapsed last November.

Outside the city centre, Jana Zistel, a German resident in Cottbus, is not sure which party to support, but is certain of her stance against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has skyrocketed in popularity among eastern cities.

“Yes, I know many people are big supporters of the AfD here, but I just don’t understand it. Germans, too, are foreigners in other places”, she told Al Jazeera.

Known for its anti-migration views, the group’s success marks the first time in decades that a far-right party in Germany has gained such popularity.

According to the latest polls, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is leading the polls, followed by AfD. Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) is in third place.

Refugees do experience the changing attitudes toward them in Germany, according to Judith Wiebke, a spokesperson for PRO ASYL, a German pro-immigration organization.

Wiebke claimed for Al Jazeera that fear has increased in immigrant communities as the election draws nearer.

“We get the feedback that in the Syrian community, there is new fear for their future in Germany, and the Afghan community]too,] is worried with regards to calls for regular deportation flights to Afghanistan”, she said.

The firewall crumbles?

The leaders of the 27-member bloc frequently argue over how to put a unified migration and asylum policy into place. Migration is a contentious issue in the European Union.

Germany has, however, maintained a relatively open-door policy for migrants. Angela Merkel, the CDU/CSU party’s former leader, declared in 2015, “Wir schaffen das”! or “We can do it”! and welcomed countless asylum seekers in their own numbers. But the CDU/CSU has since soured on immigration.

Chancellor Scholz’s government has, since 2022, eased the process of acquiring German residency and citizenship, easing the path for migrants and refugees and prompting criticism from political opponents.

CDU/CSU party leader Friedrich Merz called the policies “misguided”.

He attributed those policies to a recent wave of deadly attacks that have rocked the nation and claimed the lives of numerous people while campaigning. A two-year-old girl and her mother were killed in Munich last week when a car rammed into a crowd. Nationals from Afghanistan, Syria and Saudi Arabia have been arrested for the killings.

In January, Merz proposed a non-binding resolution in the German Parliament to retrace more asylum seekers who had crossed the border after one of them. It passed, but with the backing of the AfD. That shattered a seemingly impenetrable “firewall” policy that had for decades caused parties to refuse to engage in far-right activities.

Merz’s binding version of the immigration bill was overwhelmingly rejected by Parliament, but shocked opposition leaders accused him of breaking the firewall in passionate speeches. Even Merkel, the former chancellor who had otherwise been absent from politics, condemned her fellow CDU colleague. In protest of an AfD ban, thousands of people across Germany took to the streets to protest.

Scholz’s government, too, has begun stiffening asylum regulations. In August, 28 Afghans were deported. His country’s administration also implemented unusual EU land border checks.

These actions already have an impact on the environment.

According to Carolina Rehrmann, a member of MERA25, an independent German political party, there is a general unrest in Germany where people are unable to express their opinions openly.

“They are being stigmatised and labelled as a collective threat, particularly by the far right”, she added.

Anything but the current government

The AfD, which was founded in 2013, gained notoriety among eurosceptics when it first launched a protest against the EU member states’ decision to bail out Greece, including Germany.

Then, in 2015, as waves of asylum seekers moved into Europe, AfD rhetoric swung to immigration, and the perceived dangers of Muslim migrants.

“Remigration” – a policy that would see mass deportations of immigrants and naturalised citizens, scrapping of the euro, and military conscription are some of the party’s major promises.

Due to alleged economic disparities between east and west Germany following reunification, which has caused public outcry, the AfD’s stronghold is in eastern cities like Cottbus. By maintaining a strong TikTok presence, the party also succeeded in appealing to a young audience.

Ines Heider, the independent candidate for the Revolutionary International Organization (RIO), who claims open borders and the end of Israel’s weapons, said, “This is a protest vote because people are frustrated.” German media calls the group “left extremist”.

“Zero percent of Germans seek an alternative because they want this current government to run again.” The other day, I went to a strike of bus drivers, and one of them said to me, ‘ I don’t really like the AfD, but I don’t really know who else to vote for, ‘” she said.

AfD shocked the nation in January by sending more than 30 000 fake deportation tickets to migrants to its regional office in the southwest of Karlsruhe. The tickets, dated February 23, said a passenger by the name of “illegal immigrant” was booked on a one-way flight from Germany to a “safe country of origin”.

Marcel Bauer, The Left party’s parliamentary candidate in Karlsruhe, told Al Jazeera that people who received the tickets, ranging from Cameroonian to Syrian nationals, were devastated.

“There were grown men crying to me because they fear for their families after receiving these tickets”, Bauer, who has filed a lawsuit against AfD’s spokesperson in Karlsruhe, said. “For the far right, every migrant is a bad person”, he added.

Before the Second World War, Bauer claimed, Jews were deported by the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party). Now, the AfD is using similar “fascist” methods, he added.

AfD did not respond to a comment request. The party’s candidate for Karlsruhe, MP Marc Bernhard, claimed that everyone should receive the tickets as part of an election advertising stunt and that no one with “foreign-sounding names” would be specifically targeted for the distribution of the tickets.

Rarely do any of the parties, even the outgoing SPD-led coalition, highlight contributions of migrants to the German economy, allowing the AfD’s rhetoric to hold ground, said Marc Helbling, professor of political sociology at the University of Mannheim.

If foreigners were to all leave, Germany’s building and health sectors, among others, would simply stop working, Helbling said.

“From a purely economic perspective, it is clear that Germany, like any other Western countries, are very much dependent on migration”, he added.

Israel’s war on Gaza

Since the start of the war, the genocide in Gaza has had a long impact on German politics, despite being thousands of kilometers away.

Berlin firmly supports Israel, supporting its allies by demonstrating its solidarity in response to past Holocaust guilt. Germany has also been one of Israel’s most prolific weapon suppliers.

Rehrmann, the MERA25 candidate, said Germany’s current anti-immigration rhetoric is also tied to Israel’s war on Gaza.

“We have seen people coming from the Middle East]to Germany], being considered not only as a threat, but also the main source of anti-Semitism in Germany”, she said. Merz and the far-right AfD have said this, they said.

Some 100, 000 people of Palestinian descent live in Germany, a quarter of them in Berlin’s Neukoelln district.

The weekly pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Berlin and other cities are a crime punishable by a two-year sentence or a fine, while local media frequently portrays the demonstrations as fertile grounds for anti-Semitism.

In response to the Bundestag’s stricter definitions of anti-Semitism in November, which rights organizations like Amnesty International and a few MPs warned could infringe on international law.

Police, in January, also banned all languages except German and English at pro-Palestine demonstrations. Officials cited increased crimes and anti-Semitism during the protests, but critics say it’s an attempt to target Arabic speakers.

Since the Gaza war started, Islamophobia in Germany has skyrocketed, according to rights monitoring group, Claim. Incidents, such as verbal attacks on Muslims or attacks on mosques, went up by 114 percent between 2022 and 2023, the organisation reported.

Hugh Williamson, a Human Rights Watch director based in Berlin, said the negative rhetoric, including blaming violence by individuals on entire groups, is concerning. He also rebuffed the mainstream parties’ recommendation to adopt more far-right policies.

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