Pakistani legend Wasim Akram believes Rohit Sharma‘s India would’ve won the 2025 Champions Trophy ‘anywhere in the world’ including in Pakistan, had they not played there matches in Dubai. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the national government didn’t give the men’s team the green light to travel to host nation Pakistan for the Champions Trophy. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the BCCI then decided on a hybrid model where the Men in Blue’s matches were all hosted at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, including the semi-final and the final. As the tournament progressed, this became quite a controversial point with players, coaches and pundits from other participating countries complaining that India had an extra ‘advantage’ due to a lack of travel and familiarity with the conditions. Rohit and Co. eventually won the trophy by beating New Zealand by four wickets in the final on Sunday, staying as the only team in the tournament to not lose a single match. “This Indian team would have won it anywhere in the world,” Akram said on the Dressing Room show. “Yes, there were a lot of talks, but once decided that India would play all of their matches in Dubai and had they played in Pakistan, they would have won there as well. They won the 2024 T20 World Cup without losing a game, they went on to win the Champions Trophy without losing even one game which shows the depth in their cricket, that shows the leadership.” Akram also lauded the BCCI for backing Rohit and Gambhir through the adversity of back-to-back Test series losses to New Zealand and Australia. “If you remember they lost to New Zealand 3-0 in Test series at home, lost the Border-Gavaskar trophy and lost the series in Sri Lanka so they were under pressure to remove the captain, the coach but sanity prevailed. BCCI backed them, said this is our captain, this is our coach and now they are the champions of the champion,” Akram said. Pakistan already sacked Mohammad Rizwan from T20Is’ captaincy while Babar Azam and Naseem Shah have already been dropped from the shortest format too.