International Cricket Council Champions Trophy 2025 will be hosted on February 19 to March 9 in Pakistan and Dubai. Pakistan Captain Babar Azam, with 5957 runs from 123 ODIs, besides having a lot of experience with the likes of Mahendra Singh Dhoni and former Pakistan skippers Younis Khan and Waqar Younis in this eight-team ICC tournament, will open for Men in Green. Babar is one of the three surviving members of the 2017 Champions Trophy-winning squad to have made it to the 15-member squad announced on Friday (January 31) for the tournament.
According to a PCB release, in the absence of Saim Ayub, who will not be available to play in the tournament due to an ankle injury sustained during the second Test between South Africa and Pakistan at Newlands, Cape Town, last month, it could be either Babar or Saud Shakeel who would accompany Fakhar Zaman as an opening batsman.
Fakhar’s opening partner could be either Babar Azam or Saud Shakeel, depending on a variety of contingencies-conditions, oppositions, and match strategy. Both are well capable of giving a good account of themselves at the top; Babar, incidentally, is particularly experienced in this role and regularly opens in T20Is the Cape Town Test, in Saim Ayub’s absence, saw him score two half-centuries,” PCB said in a release on Friday (January 31).
He has only opened for Pakistan in two of those 123 ODIs but achieved scores of 4 and 22 runs in those outings.
Babar Azam opened for Pakistan in ODIs for the first time against England in Abu Dhabi on November 13, 2015, and in his second ODI as an opener, he faced England again, in Sharjah, on November 17 the same year.
The right-hand batsman has batted at No. 3 for the 1992 ODI World Cup champions through 104 matches, of which he has accumulated 5416 runs landing him the mentioned number of centuries and fifties under his belt; he has an ODI batting average of 60.17 as a No. 3 batsman.
Pakistan’s squad for ICC Champions Trophy 2025: Mohammad Rizwan (C & WK), Salman Ali Agha (VC), Babar Azam, Fakhar Zaman, Kamran Ghulam, Saud Shakeel, Tayyab Tahir, Faheem Ashraf, Khushdil Shah, Salman Ali Agha, Usman Khan (WK), Abrar Ahmed, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Hasnain, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi
