ICC Champions Trophy kicks off with Pakistan vs New Zealand amidst flag controversy

The ICC Champions Trophy 2025 is being inaugurated on Wednesday under the shadow of the 'tricolor controversy'. The first match will be played at the National Stadium in Karachi from 2.30 pm onwards. The hosts Pakistan will be head-to-head with New Zealand. The event is being hosted by Pakistan on the basis of a hybrid model. All of India's matches will be held in Dubai. In fact, the tricolor controversy arose after the video surfaced in which the flags of all the countries participating in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 were visible, but the Indian flag was not shown in the tricolor.

The video showed that the Indian flag was allegedly not hoisted at the stadium. Since then, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has been criticised for venting its anger against India for refusing to play Champions Trophy matches in the country. After being heavily criticised on social media, the PCB said that only the flags of the countries playing in Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 have been hoisted in the stadiums.

"As you are aware, India is not coming to Pakistan to play their matches during the ICC Champions Trophy 2025, flags of the countries that are going to play at the said venues have been hoisted at the National Stadium in Karachi, the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium and the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore," a source in the PCB told IANS. When asked why Karachi and Lahore stadiums did not have flags of India, Bangladesh and other participating nations, the source said, "The Indian team is going to play their matches in Dubai. Secondly, the Bangladesh team is yet to reach Pakistan and will play their first match against India in Dubai. So, their flags are not hoisted and other countries who have come here and will play in Pakistan have their flags in the stadium," he said. "

The source further said, "I don't think the PCB needs to make an official comment on this. It is clear that this controversy has been created without facts and aims to damage host Pakistan's image through fake news."

Talking about Wednesday's match, the Pakistan team is led by Mohammad Rizwan, while New Zealand is captained by Mitchell Santner. Talking about the ODI match between Pakistan and New Zealand, both have clashed a total of 118 times so far. Pakistan has the upper hand in this. The Pak team won 61 times, while New Zealand managed to win in 53 matches. At the same time, four matches were inconclusive.

At the same time, if we talk about the Champions Trophy, then New Zealand has proved to be better compared to Pakistan. Both have met three times i.e. in 2000, 2006 and 2009 and all three matches have been won by New Zealand.

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

New Zealand Squad: Will Young, Devon Conway, Kane Williamson, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham (wk), Glenn Phillips, Michael Bracewell, Mitchell Santner (c), Nathan Smith, Matt Henry, William O'Rourke, Jacob Duffy, Kyle Jamieson, Mark Chapman, Rachin Ravindra.

--IANS