Champions Trophy is back after an eight-year hiatus. The elite one-day international (ODI) tournament’s last winners, Pakistan, are playing host to their first ICC event since the 50-over World Cup in 1996.

Bitter rivals India and Pakistan rarely play each other on the cricket field, but when they do there is an unparalleled thirst for tickets.

Pakistan will host a first major multi-country cricket tournament in nearly three decades next week and its cricket chief is hopeful that a successful Champions Trophy will bring a flood of other such events.

However, those hopes have turned gloomy, and instead, cricket’s most intensified and passionate rivalry will resume at the Dubai International Stadium, in Dubai. Notably, the archrivals are set to clash on February 23,