2017 ICC Champions Trophy: Final Against India A Great Chance To Restore Our Pride: Imran Khan

Former Pakistan captain Imran Khan, on Saturday (June 17), said that the upcoming Champions Trophy final between India and Pakistan will offer the latter a great chance to avenge the heavy loss they suffered in the opening game of the tournament.

The Men in Green had suffered a humiliating loss at the hands of their arch-rivals at Edgbaston in June. After being hit for 319 runs in 48 overs, the Sarfraz Ahmed-led side was bundled out for only 164. But since then, the Men in Green turned their campaign remarkably well, defeating South Africa, Sri Lanka and hosts England to storm to their maiden Champions Trophy final. And with the team brimming with confidence at the moment, Imran Khan feels his country has got a golden opportunity to restore its pride by defeating the arch-rivals.

“I think we have got a great chance to restore our pride in the final because of the way we lost the first match to India. It was humiliating how badly we lost that match and we can turn things around now,” he said on ‘Samaa’ television channel.

The World Cup-winning skipper further said if India’s in-form top-order performs well in the final, it will put more pressure on Pakistan. India’s top-three batsmen-Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are looking at their lethal best in the tournament. The trio is in the top 5 of the highest run-getters in the tournament with Dhawan (317 runs) leading the list followed by Rohit (304) at number two and Kohli (253) at number 5.

He also backed Pakistan’s strategy of fielding first and restricting the opposition to low totals.

“India has a very good batting line-up and if they put up a big total it will bring pressure on us. The strategy of fielding first against other teams has worked well for Sarfraz against other teams as the spinners throttled the opposition in the middle overs and Hassan Ali bowled really impressively,” he said.

The 64-year old pacer concluded by lavishing praise on Sarfraz Ahmed’s captaincy who has led Pakistan to their first final of any global 50-over tournament since 1999.

“I am really impressed to see that Sarfraz has turned out to be such a bold captain,” Imran concluded.