Wounded Pak look for revenge
Pakistan will be eager to avenge their opening match loss to India and their fast bowlers will be hoping to fire against India in the final.
Awounded Pakistan will be out for revenge while India will aim to maintain their dominance when the arch-rivals meet in the final of the Champions Trophy cricket tournament at The Oval on Sunday.
Pakistan have been badly bruised against India this series in their opening group stage match, having lost the game by 124 runs via the Duckworth-Lewis (D/L) method.
India may be ahead against Pakistan in ICC tournaments by an 8-2 margin, but in all ODI tournament finals Pakistan holds a 6-2 edge in the head-to-head battle against India.
Pakistan have managed to bounce back in this tournament, defeating South Africa and Sri Lanka in the group stages and England in the semi-finals to book a berth in the final.
With Pakistan’s front-line pacer Mohammad Amir declared fit to play in the final after sitting out the previous match, he alongside new ball bowler Junaid Khan will be the key against India to provide their side with early breakthroughs.
Pakistan skipper Sarfraz Ahmed will also look to use his team’s bowling strength to do the damage against an in-form Indian batting line-up.
The spin duo of Imad Wasim and Mohammad Hafeez alongside medium- pacer Rumman Raees — who made his debut in the semi-finals — will look to provide depth and variation to the Pakistan bowling line-up.
The batting department for Pakistan under the likes of opener Azhar Ali and Fakhar Zaman followed by Babar Azam and Mohammad Hafeez will look to flourish against India having got to good starts in the previous matches but failing to build lethal partnerships.
India, on the other side have looked a balanced side with both their batting and bowling departments having managed to click throughout the tournament.
India opener Shikhar Dhawan is the tournament’s leading run scorer with 317 runs in four matches and will look to continue his momentum against Pakistan.
In-form Indian batsmen Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni have also helped their side look capable enough of chasing any target.
The bowling department for India under the likes of pacers Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, spinners Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin have looked solid bowling economi- cally while providing clinical breakthroughs.
Captain Kohli will also look to use off-break spinner Kedar Jadhav — who took two vital wickets in his previous match against Bangladesh — alongside Hardik Pandya to deceive the Pakistan batsmen.
Meanwhile, Former Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi on Saturday urged the Indian government to “soften their stance” and resume bilateral cricket series with the neighbouring country.
As India and Pakistan gear up for Sunday’s riveting ICC Champions Trophy 2017 final at The Oval here, Afridi felt bilateral matches needed to be restarted which, according to him, will help in “reducing tensions”.
The Indian government has already shown the red flag for any bilateral cricketing ties with Pakistan.,” he added. IANS