New Delhi: The Indian cricket team will have to compete in the ICC Champions Trophy in 2025. For more than ten years, India has been aiming for an ICC 50-over championship. They narrowly lost to Australia in the final of the 2023 ODI World Cup, but they were very close to winning. The Champions Trophy is now in the sights of veterans Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, whose careers in ODI cricket have been extended by this defeat. Their final appearance in a limited-overs ICC event may be the Champions Trophy, as there are no assurances that they will play in the 2027 ODI World Cup.
The ICC recently unveiled the schedule for the highly anticipated event, following a lengthy delay caused by the BCCI-PCB dispute over the hybrid model. The tournament is set to begin on February 9, 2025, with the final scheduled for March 9. India will play all their group-stage matches at the Dubai International Stadium after the PCB and BCCI agreed that all India-Pakistan encounters in ICC tournaments will take place at neutral venues. India’s opening match will be against Bangladesh on February 20, followed by a clash with Pakistan on February 23. Their final group game is set for March 2 against New Zealand.
Virat Kohli set to break Sachin Tendulkar’s world record:
Considered by many to be India’s best ODI batter, Virat Kohli will be crucial to the Men in Blue throughout the competition. In the ICC Champions Trophy, Kohli has the opportunity to create history by shattering a noteworthy mark set by Sachin Tendulkar. To become the first player in history to achieve 14,000 ODI runs in less than 300 games, he needs to score a further 96 runs. In ODI cricket, only Tendulkar and Kumar Sangakkara have scored more than 14,000 runs. While Sangakkara reached the milestone in 402 games, Tendulkar did so in 359 games. But in 295 games, Kohli has amassed 13,906 runs. Sangakkara reached the milestone in 378 innings, whilst Tendulkar did so in 350 innings.
| Player | Innings |
| Sachin Tendulkar | 350 |
| Kumar Sangakkara | 378 |
If Virat Kohli Kohli manages to score 329 runs during the tournament, he will surpass Kumar Sangakkara and move into second place on the list of all-time leading run-scorers in ODIs, behind only Sachin Tendulkar.
