Pakistan team has done well in their recent ODI matches, as they have defeated Australia and South Africa. Before the Champions Trophy, he Men in Green will lock horns with New Zealand and South Africa in a tri-series.

The Pakistan squad for the Champions Trophy 2025 has not been officially announced, but it looks like it should not be very different from the team that has played in South Africa.

Babar Azam, Mohammed Rizwan, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Harris Rauf are certain to feature in the squad, along with Saim Ayub also confirming his place in the squad as he scored two centuries in the ODIs against South Africa.

Abdullah Shaqifue is likely going to be dropped because he had a horrible outing in the three ODIs, getting dismissed three times on ducks. Fakhar Zaman is likely going to replace him.
Muhammad Irfan Khan and Kamran Ghulam might get retained in the squad as they have shown remarkable performance in the middle order.
Usman Khan might be the one to serve as the backup keeper.

Main concern for Pakistan team lies in the spin bowling. Agha Salman has done well as an all-rounder, but there is no surity that he alone will be able to handle the spin bowling responsibilities. Pakistan can even consider bringing back veteran all-rounder Shadab Khan in the squad, while Naseem Shah and Mohammad Hasnain will be the pacers.

Pakistan’s expected squad for Champions Trophy 2025:
Mohammad Rizwan (captain & wk), Fakhar Zaman, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Haris Rauf, Kamran Ghulam, Mohammad Hasnain, Muhammad Irfan Khan, Naseem Shah, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shadab Khan, Tayyab Tahir and Usman Khan (wk)

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With this impressive bowling spell, the pacer completed 100 wickets in the shortest format of the game. Shaheen had already clinched over 100 wickets in both the ODI and Test formats which meant that he became the first-ever player from Pakistan to take 100 wickets in all the 3 formats.

Shaheen became the third Pakistan bowler from his country to complete 100 T20I wickets behind Haris Rauf and Shadab Khan. The left-arm pacer has so far taken 112 wickets in ODIs and 116 scalps in Test cricket.

The 3-wicket haul against South Africa saw Shaheen complete 100 scalps in his 74th match in the shortest format. This made him the second-fastest Pakistan bowler to achieve the feat behind Rauf, who took 71 matches to complete 100 scalps in the format.

Overall, Shaheen became the youngest to achieve the feat and joined the ranks of New Zealand’s Tim Southee, Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan, and Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga.

Coming to the match, Shaheen dismissed the likes of Rassie van der Dussen, Davis Miller and Nqabayomzi Peter to help Pakistan restrict the Proteas to a total of 183/9 in 20 overs.

In reply, Pakistan lost Babar Azam for a duck and the other batters also found it difficult to counter against the South African bowlers. Skipper Mohammad Rizwan played a fine knock of 74 runs, but found no support from the other end as Pakistan finished their 20 overs on 172/8, losing the match by 11 runs.

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Basit believes that rather than being dropped because of poor performances, Shaheen was dropped from the side due to the incident that took place during Pakistan’s first Test against Bangladesh. A video went viral in which Shaheen was seen removing skipper Shan Masood’s hand from his shoulder during a team huddle on the field.

“Shaheen Afridi was asked to bowl on dead pitches, and he couldn’t perform so what about Naseem Shah’s performance? In the ODI series that Pakistan won against Australia, what did Naseem Shah do? I will tell you why Shaheen was removed. You must remember a video where Shan put a hand on Shaheen’s shoulder, and he removed it,” Basit said on his YouTube channel.

Basit also questioned PCB’s decision of bringing back Babar into the Test fold. The 53-year-old asked if Babar’s form since the England Test was enough to mark his comeback in the red-ball side.

“How many domestic matches Babar has played since being removed from the Test team? When Babar was dropped from the Test team, on what performance did he return to the team? He is a good player, but did his form improve after being dropped from that series?” Basit said.

Babar did recently feature in Pakistan’s ODI and T20I series against Australia, however he wasn’t really able to improve his fortunes, scoring 80 runs in the 3 ODIs and 47 runs in the 3 T20Is. It will be interesting to see if the batter can finally regain his form in the upcoming South Africa series.

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Babar will be looking to make amends and impress the selectors with some fine knocks in the upcoming series against the Proteas. A disappointing display can lead to him getting dropped from the Test team once again.

However, a big name that wasn’t able to make it into the team was pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi. Though the pacer did make it to both the ODI and T20I squads, his name wasn’t there to b found in the Test squad. It is expected that the pacer has been rested from the Test team in order to prepare for the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy, set to begin on February 19.

This is not the first time that the Men in Green will be playing an important Test series without the services of Afridi as he also missed Pakistan’s 3-match Test series against England where the former ended up winning by 2-1.

The 24-year-old pacer will be missing out on the Test series which is set to begin from December 26, but will feature in both the T20I and ODI series against South Africa.

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Pacer Shaheen Afridi re-claimed the top spot on the latest ODI bowler rankings. This comes after he picked up 8 wickets in th3 ODI series against Australia at a brilliant average of 12.62.

It saw Afridi move up three places and take the pole position from South Africa spinner Keshav Maharaj, who fell down to the third spot. On the other hand, Afghanistan spinner Rashid Khan remained second. Afridi previously held the number 1 spot on the bowlers ranking midway through last year’s ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in India.

Afridi’s teammate Haris Rauf jumped 14 places to 13th overall and reached a new career-high rating following his 10 wickets and Player of the Series heroics against Australia. Another Pakistan pacer, Naseem Shah also went up by 14 places to reach the 55th position.

Afridi’s rise to the top of the bowling charts means that Pakistan now have the top-ranked player in both batting and bowling in ODI cricket, with former skipper Babar Azam increasing his lead at the top of the batter charts following his total of 80 runs in the Australia series.

On the other hand, new skipper Mohammad Rizwan also made gains on the list for ODI batters and reached the 23rd position following his 74 runs in Australia.

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Winning the toss, Pakistan’s newly-appointed captain Mohammad Rizwan had no hesitation in fielding first as he wanted to unleash his pace quartet on a fresh and bouncy Perth wicket.

Pacers Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah took 3 wickets each and tore apart the Australian top order. Haris Rauf chipped in with 2 more wickets as the visitors bundled out the hosts for a mere 140-run total in Perth. The Australian batting order completely crumbled in the absence of their senior pros who had left the squad to prepare for the Border-Gavaskar series.

Chasing the modest target of 141, Pakistan openers Abdullah Shafique (42) and Saim Ayub (37) broke Australia’s morale with their partnership of 84 runs.

Finally, a 58-run stand between Babar Azam (28*) and Rizwan (30*) would be enough for the visitors to complete the chase in only 26.5 overs. This victory will be nothing short of a huge confidence booster for the Men in Green, who will next be facing the Baggy Greens in a 3-match T20I series starting from November 14.

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Former Pakistan skipper Babar Azam was the one who came in the rescue before the physio had came in as the bowler was in rising pain.

This incident happened during the 26th over of Australia’s innings. Sean Abbott had taken a shot towards the square leg where the ball was thrown back by the fielder.

Shaheen was there to secure the throw, but the uneven bounce of the pitch took the better of him and the ball hit his thumb. Babar immediately rushed to check on him and pulled his finger. After a small pause, Afridi was back to bowl.

Dr Babar is on the case! 👨‍⚕️#AUSvPAK pic.twitter.com/FupHfqon3p

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) November 10, 2024

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This was the 71st time the Baggy Greens made the Men in Green taste defeat in the format, which is the joint-most by any team. In one-day cricket, West Indies have also defeated Pakistan on 71 occasions, however Australia have managed to do so in 28 less matches.

Australia’s 71 wins have come in 109 matches, while managed to get 71 wins in 137 games. Sri Lanka have the third-highest wins over Pakistan with a tally of 59 in 157 matches.

This wasn’t the only record that Australia broke during the match as their left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc became the fastest Australian player to take 100 ODI wickets surpassing legendary pacer Brett Lee.

Starc delivered a performance with the ball that lived up to his reputation. He picked up 3 wickets while giving away 33 runs in his 10-over spell. The pacer dismissed both Pakistan openers Abdullah Shafique and Saim Ayub before dismissing tail-ender Shaheen Afridi to bag his third wicket.

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PCB picked a second-string squad for the series against Zimbabwe. Wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan is not going to be a part of the T20I series.

“This approach follows the selectors’ rotation policy and provides opportunities to domestic performers, aligning with the team’s strategy for the ICC Champions Trophy and beyond,” PCB said in a statement.

Pakistan squad for ODI series:

Aamir Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Ahmed Daniyal, Faisal Akram, Haris Rauf, Haseebullah (wk), Kamran Ghulam, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Muhammad Irfan Khan, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Shahnawaz Dahani and Tayyab Tahir

Pakistan squad for T20I series:

Ahmed Daniyal, Arafat Minhas, Haris Rauf, Haseebullah (wk), Jahandad Khan, Mohammad Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Hasnain, Muhammad Irfan Khan, Omair bin Yousuf, Qasim Akram, Sahibzada Farhan, Salman Ali Agha, Sufyan Moqim, Tayyab Tahir and Usman Khan

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As per a report, Pakistan team decided to appoint Mohammad Rizwan for both the T20I and ODI formats after their failed performance in the 2023 ODI World Cup. This decision has come out as a surprise to a lot of people since Shaheen Afridi was the was who was expected to take the captaincy role.

Shaheen Afridi was earlier appointed as the T20I captain, but was taken down after a short time. Babar came back to captaincy and led the team in the 2024 T20 World Cup, though the team failed to give out a good performance in the tournament and got eliminated in the knockout stages.

The PCB appointed Mohammad Rizwan as the new captain for the team for the white-ball format. It has been reported that suggestion from former Pakistan head coach Gary Kristen had a big impact on this decision from PCB. The selectors have supported this choice, which has declared Rizwan the official captain for both the ODI and T20I formats.

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