Champions Trophy 2025: Pak 59/2; loses second wicket as Imam run-out for 10

Pakistan are 59/2 at the end of 13 overs in the Champions Trophy against India

Dubai: After having won the toss and electing to bat, Pakistan are 59/2 at the end of 13 overs in a high-octane clash with arch-rivals India at the Champions Trophy here on Sunday. Babar Azam who got off to a fluent start, fell to Hardik Pandya for 23 of 26 balls. Soon after, Imam-Ul-Haq also fell to a brilliant fielding by Axar patel whose direct hit saw the Pak batter returning to the pavilion after scoring 10 of 26 balls.

Earlier, after winning the toss, Rizwan said Imam comes in for Fakhar Zaman, who was ruled out of the competition due to an oblique injury. Imam, the left-handed opener, will be playing an ODI for the first time since the 2023 ODI World Cup.

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“Looks like a good surface and doesn’t matter, so we want to bat first. If you play an ICC event, every game is important. The boys are familiar with the conditions and we’ve done well in this ground as well. Yeah, we lost the last game but it’s in the past for us,” he said.

India captain Rohit Sharma said they are retaining the same team, which played in their win over Bangladesh. “It’s not the same surface but looks similar to what we played on, in the last game. It could get slower. Great opportunity to come out and do what we do as a team. The way we played the last game, it wasn’t easy for us and we had to work our way. You want to test yourself and be under pressure.”

The pitch for Sunday’s game happening in front of a sell-out crowd has been used twice previously, with 70m being the size of square boundaries, while the down-the-ground boundary stands at 81m.

Playing XIs-

India: Rohit Sharma (captain), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Shami, and Kuldeep Yadav

Pakistan: Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Rizwan (captain & wk), Salman Agha, Tayyab Tahir, Khushdil Shah, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf and Abrar Ahmed