ICC Champions Trophy 2017 Final – India vs Pakistan

PTI

New Delhi: It is defending champions India taking on 'unpredictable'-tagged Pakistan in what has been termed as the 'mother of all finals', vying for the ICC Champions Trophy title, at the Oval, today.

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Pakistan beat India by 180 runs to win their maiden ICC Champions Trophy title in London.

Brief Scores:

Pakistan: 338 for four in 50 overs. (Fakhar Zaman 114, Azhar Ali 59, Mohammed Hafeez 57, Babar Azam 46; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 1/44).
India: 158 all out in 30.3 overs. (H Pandya 76, Yuvraj Singh 22; Mohammed Amir 3/16, Hassan Ali 3/19)

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Pakistan post a mammoth total of 338 against India. Fakhar Zaman brought up his first ODI ton and led Pakistan to a huge score. 

Only four times has 300 been chased successfully at the Oval. Two of those have been in this tournament, one by England last year and the other was by India in 2007. 

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It is for the first time that the two arch-rivals are facing each other in a Champions Trophy final, with Pakistan marking their maiden appearance in the coveted tournament.

Turning to the coin, India won the toss and Virat Kohli opted to bowl first. And what Indian skipper Virat had to say about it –"Nice and hard wicket. There's a fresh wicket, even grass covering and we'd like our bowlers to exploit it. Then we like chasing. No matter the conditions, you have to play good cricket. One more effort to go. I'm sure the guys will give it their best shot. If you make the finals, you've played really good cricket. We don't take oppositions for granted and today is no different. No matter what they bring, we are believing in our abilities."

Disappointed with the coin not turning in his favour, Pakistan skipper Sarfraz said, "We wanted to bowl first. But the toss is out of our control. Hopefully we can post more than 300. I said when we arrived here, we have nothing to lose and we have nothing to lose today too. Mohammad Amir is fit and he is back." says Sarfraz Ahmed.

Talking about team changes – Mohammad Amir returned to replace debutant Rumman Raees while the Indian squad remained unchanged.

Playing XI –

India: RG Sharma, S Dhawan, V Kohli, Y Singh, MS Dhoni, K Jadhav, H Pandya, R Jadeja, R Ashwin, B Kumar, J Bumrah

Pakistan: Azhar Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam, Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Sarfraz Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Mohammad Amir, Shadab Khan, Hasan Ali, Junaid Khan