After the triumph at Lord’s thee other day against South Africa, Pakistan would be looking to take advantage of the momentum and carry them forward while also relying on India and New Zealand to beat England to get a place in the semi finals. On the other hand, New Zealand who are still unbeaten in this tournament and are the surprise in form players of the tournament, are still to play India and Australia, the other teams in contention for the semi final spots.
Taking a look back at the last match saw Shoaib Malik’s replacement Haris Sohail show why he deserves to be in the team above Shoaib Malik whose experience hasn’t been benefitting Pakistan as of late. Pakistan would be looking forward to play with the same team that played at Lord’s, however, there might be changes with Shaheen Afridi coming in and out, possibly. Otherwise the Pakistan team looks balanced however there are definitely some areas that they would consider rethinking their strategy and that would be the strike rate in the opening overs. Pakistan has been using an India like style of play where they start slowly and then come into the rhythm and start scoring, increasing their strike rate throughout the match, well the problem with that is that while India has been relying on some extremely reliable middle-order for as far as we can remember, the middle order of Pakistan can be real surprising sometimes. It often gets the job done, but on an off day, it crumbles like anything. Another major roadblock that has been a problem for ages for Pakistan has been the fielding, although the influx of youngsters in previous tournament found a massive difference in the quality of fielding, it has downgraded to being abysmal this tournament. A fix to that would be everything that a Pakistani fan would be hoping.
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When we take a look at New Zealand, they are in the form of their life with everything ticking for them at the moment, and their latest win against the Indies is adamant to the fact that they have performed extremely well throughout the tournament and would definitely have their eyes on the trophy when the time comes.
