Pakistan meets England today or probably has already met (depending on when you opened this article).
England is one of the favourites if not the favourite for the tournament. Pre-match review on cricinfo has put Pakistan closer to Lahore then Lords after this match. So literally everything is stacked against Pakistan. If the men in green want to win this, they need to pull of a miracle, albeit a much needed miracle. So here are the XI who can pull this off:- 1. Fakhar Zaman
2. Imam ul Haq
3. Babar Azam
In the last year, Pakistan’s top order has scored an average of 46.8, while the rest of the team has scored at 28.4. I’d give them another chance at the ground where they’ve recently scored well.
4. Muhammad Hafeez
5. Sarfraz Ahmed
6. Asif Ali
For the middle order, I’ll keep Muhammad Hafeez for the anchor role while Sarfraz should responsible for rotating strike and keep the run a ball formula entact. I’d go with Asif Ali over Shoaib Malik and Haris Sohail on the basis of his power hitting abilities, which Pakistan will definitely needs on such flat pitches.
7. Imad Wasim
8. Shadab Khan
Shadab is an obvious pick for his knack to capitalise on the choke sewed by other bowlers. And for the choke purposes mentioned above, there is no better option than Imad Wasim, nowadays.
9. Hassan Ali
10.Wahab Riaz
11. Muhammad Amir
It’s the pitch where the current and previous highest ODI totals were scored, I’d definetly go with experience. I’d open with Amir and Hassan while use Wahab between the 17th and 24th over. Following the Champions trophy tradition, we’ll restart the bowling plan from the 25th over. Ideally I’d want Wahab(4), Amir(3) and Hassan Ali(3) to finish off things for the team [40th to 50th over]