Pakistan defeat to great rivals now in past as world watches rematch
PAKISTAN have already “closed the chapter” on their trouncing by India in the group stages of the Champions Trophy and intend to prove the point in the final.
Straight-talking coach Mickey Arthur has previously described Pakistan’s performance in their 124-run defeat to their neighbours and great rivals at Edgbaston two weeks ago as “terrible” and “shambolic”.
On the eve of today’s high-profile rematch, he also said the Birming- ham encounter was an “aberration”, entirely uncharacteristic these days of a team who often glory in their reputation for unpredictability.
Pakistan recovered their composure to record back-to-back victories in Cardiff, the first over Sri Lanka taking them through to the semi-final stage and the second knocking England out of their own tournament four days ago.
Arthur is confident that, with key seamer Mohammad Amir fit to come straight back into the team after the back spasm which ruled him out on Wednesday, Pakistan can consign their Birmingham misadventure to history.
“The India game was an aberration,” he said.
“What we’ve produced after that doesn’t come as any surprise, because that’s how we trained, and that’s what we worked at.
“It was very disappointing to see that go wrong in the Indian game, but ... we’ve closed the chapter on