Category World News

Who: Pakistan vs. India
What: T20 Asia Cup Super Fours
When: Sunday, September 21 at 14:30 GMT
Where: Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Dubai, UAE
How to follow: We’ll have all the build-up on Al Jazeera Sport from 09:30 GMT in advance of our live text commentary stream.

At the T20 Asia Cup 2025 in Dubai, bitter rivals India and Pakistan will play on the same field for the second time in eight days.

The winner will advance one step closer to the final, while the losers will continue to advance to the final spot in the tournament decider due to their clash on Sunday, which will take place in the Super Fours stage.

India will start as favorites for a number of reasons, not the least of which is their seven-wicket thrashing of Pakistan in their Group A match on September 14.

In addition to their status as the ICC’s top-ranked men’s T20 team, Suryakumar Yadav’s side are the tournament’s defending champions and the reigning T20 champions.

As India’s players left the field without performing the customary post-match handshake, there will be much more on the line for Pakistan as they look to put aside both the humiliating defeat and the events that occurred following their humiliating defeat.

What are the key details for you to know about the match:

What happened in the last India vs Pakistan match?

With the opening ball of the match, India’s star bowler Jasprit Bumrah struck as Pakistan’s opener Saim Ayub was thrown out at point off Hardik Pandya’s bowling.

Pakistan reached the 100-run mark in their 19th over and finished with 128 before Shaheen Shah Afridi and Sufiyan Muqeem, a leg-spin bowler, hit four fours and two sixes.

The target was never going to be enough for a power-packed Indian batting lineup, and opener Abhishek Sharma took the match away from Pakistan with his belligerent innings of 31 runs off 13 balls.

With their second match of the tournament, Yadav followed suit with 47 runs off 37 balls.

As is the custom after every cricket match, India left with two points and left without grinning at the Pakistan team.

What transpired following the game?

Without speaking to the Pakistani captain and team for the customary post-match handshakes, Yadav&nbsp left the field alongside his batting partner, Shivam Dube.

Pakistan’s players trudged off in a group and waited for the Indian squad and support staff to come out and shake hands, as is the norm at the end of cricket matches.

The Indian contingent, however, only shook hands with one another before entering their dressing room as the eager Pakistan players watched.

Why did India’s players not shake hands with the Pakistani team?

When asked to explain the actions of his team, India’s captain Yadav said, “A few things in life are above sportsman’s spirit.”

We dedicate this victory to our brave armed forces who participated in Operation Sindoor and stand with all the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack and their families.

Yadav was referring to the Indian armed forces ‘ multiple missile attacks on six locations inside Pakistan.

What was Pakistan’s response?

Naveed Akram Cheema, the manager of Pakistan, objected to Pycroft’s actions while he is an ICC-accredited match referee.

Additionally, Pakistan captain Agha did not speak at the post-match captain’s chat with the host broadcaster, in a mark of protest.

Three days later, Pakistani officials considered withdrawing from the competition as a protest, which caused a delayed start to their match against the UAE.

Why is India ‘ hosting ‘ the Asia Cup in the UAE?

Due to the recent conflict between India and Pakistan, the tournament was scheduled to take place in the UAE, where the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is still the official host.

Why does India not play Pakistan in bilateral cricket matches?

The Indian government has barred its athletes and teams from competing against their Pakistani counterparts in bilateral tournaments in all sports. All India-Pakistan matches in multination sports tournaments must be held at a neutral venue, as are Indian athletes prohibited from traveling to Pakistan.

Both nations agreed to host one another at a place of peace during ICC events prior to the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.

What is the forecast for Dubai’s India vs. Pakistan match?

Sunday’s highs of 41 degrees Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit) and some cloud cover are predicted for a hot, humid day in the forecast.

It will get slightly cooler in the evening as the match will start just after sunset, and the temperature will drop to 31C (88F).

The Asia Cup has been won by Pakistan how many times?

In 2000 and 2012, Pakistan won the trophy twice and advanced to the final five.

India are seven-time Asia Cup champions, with 11 appearances in the final.

In the Asia Cup, how many times has India defeated Pakistan?

India has defeated Pakistan 11 times in their 20 Asia Cup matches and six times to Pakistan’s defeat. Three matches, including the group-stage match in 2023, were abandoned due to poor weather.

When did Pakistan last last defeat India?

In the UAE’s 2022 edition, Pakistan won the Asia Cup for the last time. Mohammad Rizwan top-scored with 71 runs in the Super Four clash, but it was Mohammad Nawaz’s 20-ball-41 that took Pakistan over the line in the run chase.

Head-to-head T20Is India vs. Pakistan

Since the inaugural ICC T20 World Cup in 2007, the countries have met in 14 T20Is. India has won 11 matches, including the first one that ended in a Super Over, in 2007, which was tied at one point.

Dubai was the only country to win three out of four.

Players to watch: India

Abhishek Sharma: It is enough for the young top-orderer to establish himself as a player to watch in the Asia Cup. The 24-year-old has the best career strike rate of 193 among all T20 batters, and he supports that statistic with two centuries and half-centuries.
• Varun Chakaravarthy: The 34-year-old leg-spin bowler’s second foray into the Indian side has reaped him big rewards as he has taken 27 wickets in his last 12 T20I matches.

Watch out for Pakistan.

Hasan Nawaz: Pakistan has frequently been criticized for their batters’ inability to match modern-day T20 strike rates, but in Nawaz, it appears to have found a way to address this issue. The 23-year-old has a strike rate of 174, with a T20 hundred and two fifties in his 16 matches.
• Sufiyan Muqeem, a left-arm wrist spinner who made his limited-overs debut less than two years ago, has become a staple of the limited-overs cricket starting lineup. He has taken 25 wickets in his 17 T20Is.

Form guide: India

Since winning the World Cup in June 2024, India has not lost a T20 series and is unbeaten in Asia.

W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W results in the last five results (most recent first):

Form guide: Pakistan

Pakistan’s recent T20 form has been mixed, but they will be ready for the marquee match with a series win.

W-L-W-W-L-L-W-L-L-W-L-L-L-W-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L

Team news: India

The holders are expected to return to the same team that defeated Pakistan in the group stage after resting a few of their top bowlers in the match against Oman.

Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Sanju Samson (wicketkeeper), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy, and Kuldeep Yadav are the predicted XI.

Squad: Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya, Arshdeep Singh, Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (wicketkeeper), Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Rinku Singh, Sanju Samson (wicketkeeper).

Pakistan team news

Pakistan will likely field the same XI despite the loss on Sunday, and they will hope this time around.

Predicted XI: Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Haris (wicketkeeper), Salman Agha (captain), Hasan Nawaz, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Faheem Ashraf, Abrar Ahmed, Sufiyan Muqeem.

Salman Agha (captain), Faheem Ashraf, Faheem Zaman, Faheem Ashraf, Faheem Zaman, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Hasan Nawaz, Hussain Talat, Mohammad Wasim, Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Salman Mirza, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Sufiyan Muqeem, Abdul

Where can I purchase India vs. Pakistan tickets?

Jameela Sanaqra’s three sons, who were occupying the West Bank refugee camp, are no longer with us. She knows for certain that Israel killed two of them.

On February 27, a week before his 26th birthday, Israeli commandos shot her third son, Mahmoud, in his bedroom.

He was taken by the soldiers, but his family has not heard from him since.

She is grieving and struggling mentally, which only makes him feel better.

“Palestinian mothers carry their sons twice; Jameela, 67, told Al Jazeera in her home in the Balata refugee camp that she had experienced both during the pregnancy and the day of the funeral procession.

According to the Palestinian National Campaign for the Recovery of Martyrs’ Bodies, Mahmoud is likely one of the more than 2,220 Palestinians killed in occupied West Bank and Gaza whose bodies are frequently kept in refrigerators or buried in designated cemeteries.

The Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC) says Israel uses the practice as a weapon of war and as a means to deny Palestinians the chance to mourn lost loved ones.

Jameela has been denied the opportunity to transport her son’s final resting place, just like so many other Palestinian mothers.

Camp for refugees being attacked

Balata, east of Nablus, is the most populated refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, established in 1950.

At least 33,000 people are crammed into its sparse streets, which is less than a quarter of a square kilometre and roughly the size of 35 football fields.

More than 45 Palestinians’ faces are emblazoned on windows and walls like shrines, according to locals, who claim Israel has killed them since October 7.

Palestinian resistance groups operating under the cover of the camp’s labyrinthine network of alleyways and favela-like dwellings have long been a thorn in the side of the Israeli military.

A Greek Orthodox Church known as Jacob’s Well towers over the camp. In Judaism, a funerary monument known as Joseph’s Tomb, which is thought to be the patriarch’s final resting place, is located further up the road.

The site is significant to Palestinians because it is believed to be the resting place of Sheikh Yousef Dweikat, a renowned religious scholar, who was buried in the 18th century.

The ultranationalists in Netanyahu’s coalition want it under Israeli control because of Joseph Tomb’s significance to Judaism and relevance to the Zionist tradition.

Inciting clashes and violence, armed settlers escorted by soldiers storm the site to enrage Palestinian neighbors, chant, and perform religious rituals there.

Balata has been under siege since Israel stepped up its onslaught on the West Bank following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks.

The Israeli army repeatedly bombs the camp’s streets and numerous structures as it raids them.

According to the UNRWA, the camp has one of the highest rates of poverty, food insecurity, and unemployment in the West Bank, making it comparable to a ghetto. More than 60 per cent of the camp’s population is under the age of 18.

snatching bodies from deceased

Mahmoud will receive the remains of his older brothers, Ahmad and Ibrahim, in an empty plot in Balata’s cemetery.

The family is waiting for Mahmoud’s body or confirmation of his death. But they are aware that neither are likely to occur.

According to the JLAC, Israel still has bodies that date back to the 1967 War.

“The occupation authorities impose their control over the deepest feelings of loss, often forcing families to wait endlessly to retrieve the bodies of their children,” a report for the JLAC’s National Campaign to Retrieve War Victims states.

Two of her seven grandchildren, Amira and Bara’a, and two of her four daughters, Bara’a and Amira, sat in Jameela’s living room. By the door, her husband, who was mournful and solemn, sat quietly.

She is sure that Mahmoud’s body not being returned is part of the collective punishment her family suffers because her eldest son, Ahmad, fought for Palestinian armed groups before he was killed in 2008, aged 20.

Jameela called it a desecration.

For the families, especially the mothers, it is torture. Closure is impossible; I can pray for him, speak to him, and pass the time peacefully there. ”

Al Jazeera reached out to the Israeli military for comment on Mahmoud’s case, but received no response.

resilience and punishment

Mahmoud’s short life was predominated by bereavement and trauma.

In an era-defining photo of the second Intifada, five-year-old Mahmoud’s arm covers his tears as he looks over the rubble of his home in 2004, destroyed by soldiers to punish the family for his brother Ahmad’s resistance activities.

When a soldier shot the 16-year-old in the leg, hitting a major artery, killing the wound, Mahmoud’s middle brother Ibrahim, who was not a member of the resistance, during an Israeli army raid on Balata in November 2006, the soldier was searching for him.

Then, in 2008, Mahmoud was pictured weeping over Ahmad’s body after he was assassinated, in an image that went viral. In the same house as his younger brother, Muhammad, who enlisted in the resistance in his early teens, he was shot dead.

Years later, Mahmoud would face the military. In 2022, a video of soldiers beating him mercilessly in front of Jameela in the family home gained international attention.

Mahmoud was wanted over accusations of arms trafficking, planting explosives, and other crimes after his death, according to Israeli media. According to the family, they announced that the military had killed “Balata’s most wanted”.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an armed group affiliated with the political party Fatah, paid tribute to Mahmoud’s contribution to resistance in the camp on Telegram.

Although his mother refutes his claim that he fought, other camp members claim to have known him as a member of the resistance.

Jameela might have been unaware of his activities.

Jameela told the story of Mahmoud’s shooting beneath a picture of her slain sons – the frame shattered by the soldiers who invaded her home the day they attacked Mahmoud.

She said, “My mind is scattered, and there is a fire in me that only can be extinguished when I buried Mahmoud next to his brothers.”

During the February attack, Israeli soldiers left a trail of destruction in the Sanaqra family, much of which the family is unable to repair.

Jameela recalls how two soldiers burst through the door early in the morning and violently confined the entire family to one room, apart from Mahmoud, who remained locked in his bedroom.

As I lay on the ground, they struck me, knocked me over, and stomped on my leg and chest,” Jameela continued.

Bara’a was attacked by a dog; he chased her and bit her leg … One of the soldiers told me I was the reason my sons were ‘terrorists’ – and the reason they were killed,” Jameela said.

I started crying as a mother as an additional soldier inquired how many martyrs my family had, and he replied, “I now have three,” and I started crying. My son and I couldn’t help but be. ”

As soldiers held them at gunpoint and demanded that they disclose where weapons were being kept, the Sanaqra family frantically screamed Mahmoud’s name as shots rang out upstairs.

Jameela remembered the short, loud and terrible cry of agony – interrupted by gunshots – that she believes to be her son’s final utterance in this life. She claims that it still haunts her family home today.

Both the soldiers and the family were extricated once Mahmoud’s body was discovered.

Jameela produced Mahmoud’s blood-stained clothes – a T-shirt and trousers ridden with bullet holes, suggesting almost no part of his body was left unscathed. He was stripped and dragged down the stairs by the soldiers, leaving “a trail of blood” behind.

Since the attack, Mahmoud’s mattress, clothes, and carpet haven’t been left unharmed. Bullet holes have peppered the walls and the window frames.

Nesreen Bsharat, a psychologist based in Nablus, runs a mother support group in Balata and offers online therapy to children in Gaza.

According to her, “Palestinian mothers have the same maternal instinct as every other mother in the world,” she told Al Jazeera. “They don’t want their children to die. ”

The difference is that the mother finds herself having to accept it when it is the child’s choice, Bsharat continued.

Since October 7, the residents of Balata say there has been no rest from military raids, which happen almost every day.

Many families who can afford it are leaving, while those who can are forced to endure or resist, and are subject to displacement regardless.

More than 40,000 people from the nearby cities of Tulkarem and Jenin, which are both at the center of the West Bank’s resistance axis, have already been relocated, and Balata residents fear they will follow.

Israel is making life unbearable for those in the camps.

Who is the person who is most close to you and causes you the most pain, Jameela said. I only want to spend time with my sons right now. ”

The Palestinian mother prefers to raise her children according to their religion and values. She wants her children to be teachers, doctors, and engineers, Jameela said.

“She wants her child to be the best version of himself … But Israel won’t allow this.