All On the Line, screams the giant billboards of Champions Trophy in all the host cities, from Dubai to Lahore cutting across Karachi and Rawalpindi. There is nothing extraordinarily imaginative or attention-grabbing about the caption. But it captures everything the tournament means to the country as well as its cricket. The global gaze would be on Pakistan’s competence to pull off a multinational tournament, bereft of distressing incidents, when the locals as well as the foreigners could watch the game without fear of their lives.
But irresistible is the narrative arc whether Pakistan, liberated after remapping itself on the cricket map, could rediscover the old glory on the field. At the peak of 50-over mania, Pakistan was the cult team. The team of exotic and dark arts, reverse swing and toe-crushers, of roguish volatility and irascible brilliance, of alley-cats and superstars, a theatre and law unto themselves. If you didn’t blatantly love them, you clandestinely envied them. The slow fading of ODI’s charms ran parallel, and was entwined, perhaps, with Pakistan’s drift to mediocrity in this format. Perhaps, for ODIs to resurrect, it needs Pakistan cricket to revive too.
The batch of 2025 doesn’t exude the marvel or mystique of the 80s, 90s, 2000s or even the 2017 squadron of Sarfraz that pulled off a heist in tune with the country’s fetish for chaotic thrills and quirk to tear all pre-tournament calculations to bits of paper. But they are riding a wave of resurgence, losing only three of their last eleven games. Since the catastrophic World Cup in India, they have beaten Australia, South Africa and Zimbabwe away. The defeats to New Zealand, who they countenance in the tournament opener, in the triangular series partially dishevelled the momentum they had gathered in this span. But there are vital signs of the Mohammed Rizwan-led group mounting a stiff title (defence) challenge.
🎥 ICYMI: Highlights of a star-studded ICC Champions Trophy 2025 Curtain Raiser in Lahore ✨
Let the games begin! 🏏#ChampionsTrophy pic.twitter.com/0AEPMfsYv6
— Pakistan Cricket (@TheRealPCB) February 17, 2025
At the soul of their revitalised spirit is the oldest strength of theirs. Pure, raw fast bowling. In Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf and Muhammad Hasnain, they have a fearsome quartet, a fusion of high pace and intelligence, capable of producing magic and madness, efficiency and intensity, even if Hasnain and Rauf are notoriously erratic.
In the absence of high-class spinners—Khushdil Shah, Salman Agha and Kamran Ghulam don’t evoke the dread of Saqlain Mushtaq or Saeed Ajmal, or even Imad Wasim—the pacers would heavy-lift the bowling duties. Pakistan, wisely, didn’t squeeze in spinners for the sake of it. They will hope the surfaces would be tailored to conceal this uncharacteristic shortage of spinners, now a misplaced heritage for the land that raised Abdul Qadir and Mushtaq Ahmed, rather than ally with the opponent’s strengths.
Paradoxically, New Zealand look the more subcontinental side. The Black Caps have a retinue of spinners, specialists and part-timers who could revel on turning tracks. None of them are magical but men cannily fulfilling their duties. Captain Mitchell Santner exemplifies their clinical prowess–since the start of last year, he has leaked just 4.23 runs an over.
The triseries triumph attested to the faculties that make them one of the favourites to end the Pakistan trip in glory—resourceful spin stock, relentless seamers, robust batting core and an experienced nucleus inspiring. Had not injuries stalled quicks Lockie Ferguson and Ben Sears, they would have been an all the more intimidating proposition.
Heartening has been the return of Kane Williamson, whose 133 not out against South Africa, conveyed his cracking form. Daryl Mitchell, Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips and Devon Conway comprise a tip-top batting phalanx that could kill an opponent through more ways than one. The batting depth is so enviable that Santner, an all-rounder of redoubtable calibre, is pinned down at No 8.
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Contrastingly, the injury to Saim Ayub, the left-handed opener behind Pakistan’s revival after the World Cup slump, has been a rude jolt. The fretting over his replacement resulted in the extreme measure of pushing Babar Azam up the order. Babar would again be the leading light, now that he has been unburdened of captaincy chores. Like the game in the country, Pakistan would pray for his revival too. Though topping the batting charts, according to the ICC, he is without a hundred for the last two years, the drought stretching 21 innings. If not, the responsibilities on the ageing shoulders of ex-seabird Fakhar Zaman, the chief engineer of the 2017 victory, would swell. Captain Mohammed Rizwan’s rich vein of runs inspires hope. But Pakistan would need contributions from down the order—from the likes of Khushdil Shah and Faheem Ashraf—to make the long-awaited tournament at home memorable.
Weighing in the balance, form and composition of both sides, an argument that New Zealand begin as favourites over the host nation doesn’t sound hyperbolic. But no team parodies the odds or performs the unexpected as expectedly or gloriously as Pakistan does. The 2017 triumph was a prime example, when they entered the tournament as the eighth ranked team and toppled the overwhelming favourites that were Virat Kohli’s India. There is more riding on the tournament this time—capacity to host a multinational tournament event-free, a shot at rediscovering their mystique and a title defence—that the routine caption aptly captures what it means for the country and the sport it feverishly watches. It’s all on the line for Pakistan.
