Champions Trophy: Imam comes in as Pakistan opt to bat first against unchanged India

Dubai, Feb 23 (IANS) Imam-ul-Haq comes into Pakistan’s playing XI as captain Mohammad Rizwan won the toss and elected to bat first against India in a high-stakes Group A clash in the 2025 Champions Trophy at the Dubai International Stadium on Sunday.
 

The two teams last met in an ODI game at the 2023 World Cup in Ahmedabad, with India winning by seven wickets. A win for India, who beat Bangladesh by six wickets, would put them on the cusp of entering the semi-finals.

Another loss for defending champions Pakistan, who faced a 60-run defeat to New Zealand, would lead them to an early exit from the eight-team competition.

After winning the toss, Rizwan said Imam comes in for Fakhar Zaman, who is 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.

“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