Pakistan out of ICC Champions Trophy 2025 after 6-wicket defeat to India
Pakistan’s hopes of making it to the knockout stages of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 were dashed after they suffered a 6-wicket defeat to India in Dubai on Sunday, February 23. The loss has put Pakistan’s campaign in the tournament to an end.
Pakistan, who lost their opening game to New Zealand in Karachi, were forced to beat India to stay alive in Group A. Captain Mohammad Rizwan won the toss and chose to bat first, but the team struggled to post a competitive total. Saud Shakeel made 62, Rizwan 46, and Khushdil Shah 38 runs, while India’s Kuldeep Yadav and Hardik Pandya took three and two wickets respectively.
In response, Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer played key roles, scoring 46 and 56 runs respectively, as Virat Kohli, who scored 100*, took India to the finishing line with 6 wickets in hand and 45 balls remaining. The result has left Pakistan at the bottom of the table with two losses in two matches, while India tops the table with two wins.
Rizwan was candid in his assessment of the team’s performance, saying that the campaign had come to an end. "For now, we can say that it’s over. This is the truth," he said in the post-match press conference. However, he acknowledged that the team was still in the running to make it to the semifinals on the basis of other results.
Rizwan expressed his disappointment at having to progress through other teams’ results, saying, "As a captain, I honestly don’t like this. If you can win, then do it. If you can’t, then don’t worry about it. I don’t care if you are sitting in someone else’s shadow. I don’t care if you are outside the tournament or in it. Yes, New Zealand has defeated us, India has defeated us. We accept it. We can play well, we can play badly. We can’t say that we should stay on someone else’s side. Allah has made this chance; we can’t say anything about it."
Rizwan also defended the selection of a single spinner, Abrar Ahmed, saying, "You can’t say that we made a mistake by picking just one spinner. If you look at that Indian team also, they have Kuldeep (Yadav) as the front-line spinner. (Ravindra) Jadeja and Axar Patel are all-rounders. We also have Salman Ali Agha and Khushdil Shah. They bowled very well in the past."
The skipper also admitted that the middle order had failed to fire, saying, "The middle order was not good enough. Yesterday in our meeting we discussed that on this pitch 270-280 runs would be enough. Because the outfield was slow and the pitch was slow. If we had scored 280, maybe the results would be different."
He also spoke about the team’s batting strategy, saying, "Me (46) and Saud Shakeel (62) tried to build a partnership and took a lot of time. But after that, the shot selection was poor, and that’s where they got a chance to take our wickets. After that, our middle order couldn’t take the pressure, and we couldn’t manage."
With the match over, Pakistan now has to rely on other results to make it to the knockout stages.
