In the opening match of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 played at National Stadium, Karachi, New Zealand beat Pakistan by 60 runs yesterday.
Pakistan after winning the toss elected to field first. New Zealand opener Will Young and middle order batsman cum wicket keeper Tom Latham scored centuries while Glenn Phillips scored half century and put a challenging total of 320 runs by losing 6 wickets in the allotted 50 overs.
Pakistani bowlers Naseem Shah and Haris Rauf shared 2 wickets each while Abrar Ahmed claimed a wicket. Naseem Shah 62/2, Haris Rauf 83/2 and Abrar Ahmed 47/1 had bowling figures.
Chasing a total of 320 runs, Pakistan opener Babar Azam scored 64 runs and Khushdil Shah scored 69 runs and Salman Agha scored 42 runs. Barring these Pakistani batsman, no other batsman scored runs to surpass the New Zealand total of 320 runs.
New Zealand bowlers Will O’Rourke took 3/47, Mitchell Santner 3/66, Matt Henry 2/25, Micheal Bracewell 1/38, Nathan Smith 1/20 were the successful bowlers.
Pakistan could score only 260 runs by losing all their batsmen in just 47.2 overs. Pakistan lost the opening match in their home ground with a huge margin. In the remaining matches, Pakistan has to perform in more efficient manner to remain in the tournament.
New Zealand batsman Tom Latham was named as the Player of the match for his knock of 118 runs in 104 balls.
Match 2 of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 tournament will be between India and Bangladesh today in Dubai International Stadium at Dubai. It is to be noted that all the Indian matches of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 will be played outside Pakistan as India refused to play in Pakistan.