Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan have forged a partnership for the third wicket during the Champions Trophy 2025 match between Pakistan and India.
Their partnership comes after losing the wickets of openers for 23 and 10. The clash in Dubai will be a crucial game for Pakistan who lost their first match of the 2025 Champions Trophy against New Zealand at Karachi.
On the other hand, India will play their second game of the edition with much confidence after defeating Bangladesh in Thursday’s game.
Pakistan and India have played 135 matches in ODI format. Out of those, India has won 57 matches while Pakistan has 73 wins.
After the 2017 Champions Trophy, India and Pakistan have played 6 ODIs, of which India has an advantage of 5 wins and 1 ended with no result.
Pakistan look to rebuild after India struck twice in quick succession to unsettle their top-order 👊#ChampionsTrophy #PAKvIND ✍️: https://t.co/O9lMfFTSG6 pic.twitter.com/5IKmy8R0w8
— ICC (@ICC) February 23, 2025
Aiming for a solid start, Babar Azam and Imam-ul-Haq had a decent start before Hardik Pandya picked the wicket of the former for 23 runs.
During the 9th over of the match, Babar pushes at it thinking the cover drive was on, and gets an edge that KL Rahul pouches by getting low to his right.
In the very next over, Axar Patel picked the wicket of Imam-ul-Haq on a run out. Taking off for the single Axar charges in and hits the stumps directly.
Speaking at the toss, Mohammad Rizwan said, “Will bat first, looks like a good surface. Want to put up a good target. Every match is important in ICC events, we will keep things normal.”
“The boys are familiar with these conditions, we have done well here and we want to do our best today. We lost our last game, but it is past for us now. One change – Fakhar is out, Imam is in.”
Meanwhile Rohit Sharma said, “Doesn’t really matter, they won the toss so we’ll bowl first. Looks similar to the last game, the surface is on the slower side. We have an experienced unit in batting so we know what we need to do if the pitches get slower.”
“Need an overall performance from the team – with bat and ball. The last game wasn’t an easy one for us, which is always nice. You want to be under pressure and test yourself. We are playing the same team.”
