Pakistan's new opening combination for Champions Trophy 2025 - Babar Azam and Fakhar Zaman
The Pakistan Cricket Team has made a bold decision of changing it's opening combination for the forthcoming Mega Event, Champions Trophy 2025. According to news reports of Pakistani media, former skipper Babar Azam is set to open the batting of the Green Shirts alongside experienced opening batter Fakhar Zaman.
This move comes after a serious injury to explosive batter Saim Ayub and this move is aimed at strengthening the Batting unit of the Shaheens as the beginning phase of the innings.
The duo of Fakhar & Babar have played together in the past, but this will be their first time opening the innings together in a One-Day International match. While Zaman is known for his hard hitting batting style, Azam is popular for his calm & controlled batting style and this will provide a lot of stability to the batting department of Pakistan.
This combination can prove to be solid one for the National team at the start of the innings as Fakhar can do his dirty work of going after the bowlers from ball number one while Babar can hold the other end with his calm nature and his consistency will also work wonders for the Mohammed Rizwan-led outfit.
This big decision comes with high expectations of the Pakistani fans as they would want to witness their team lift the Champions Trophy on home soil. The other participating teams will be focussing on getting rid of the top-order of Pakistan early, knowing the kind of threat the duo of Babar and Fakhar pose as openers. If the defending champions face early setbacks, then the middle-order will have to step up to provide support to the team.
Babar's poor form with the bat in recent times has come under scrutiny in the lead-up to the Champions Trophy 2025. While he has shown glimpses of good performances recently versus the South Africans and Australians, he hasn't been able to rediscover his best form yet. Now that he is set to bat as an opener, the pressure on him increased automatically and the 29-year-old faces an important challenge ahead.
The 2025 edition of the Champions Trophy kicks off from the 19th of February onwards, with hosts Pakistan taking on New Zealand in the opening fixture in the city of Karachi. This forthcoming competition will test the ability of Babar Azam to deliver under pressure and guide the team home in difficult situations.
With the duo of Fakhar & Babar opening the innings, the Pakistani fans would be hoping that their team gets off to a strong start in the tournament. The performance of these two will determine how well the defending champions are going to perform in Champions Trophy 2025.
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