Pakistan’s Champions Trophy 2025 capitulation has once again exposed all the things that are going wrong in the country’s cricket. Since the 2017 Champions Trophy, Pakistan haven’t had much to show in the ODI format. The latest setback, in a tournament that it’s hosting, has led to widespread criticism. Former Pakistan pacer Mohammad Amir took a step further while speaking about the captaincy transition from Babar Azam to Mohammad Rizwan. Both Babar and Rizwan are batting mainstays of Pakistan but their performances have been under the scanner of late.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!“Like they say, you were sitting in a Ferrari and have come to rickshaw now. At some point, I liked him because he led in domestic cricket and also in the Pakistan Super League, he was successful there and his team even played in the final. But then suddenly if you see after two to four months, his decisions began to change suddenly. I don’t know why or what happened as I haven’t shared the dressing room with him for two to four months. Why is he behaving this way, his decisions have been strange,” Amir said on Sports Tak.
“He was a daring captain at the beginning. It looked like he would change some things. But then suddenly in the last two or four months, you feel that he is very distant from cricketing knowledge. Everyone thinks that Ahmed (Shehzad) made videos, I gave interviews to the media, even Wasim (Akram) bhai, you name it. Everyone said that this squad is not fine, there are no genuine openers, you should add spinners. If the captain says he didn’t have any power, that is a lie, he does have power. The way Rizwan was appointed as skipper, he could have made these decisions but he didn’t do it, I don’t know why.”
Recently, former India batter Aakash Chopra trolled Pakistan’s white-ball captain Mohammad Rizwan after the host team’s early exit from Champions Trophy 2025.
What added to Pakistan’s trouble was the fact that they ended the tournament at the bottom spot in the Group A table with no wins in three games and only one point to their credit. The side also achieved an unwanted record of becoming the defending champions with worst-ever finish in the tournament history – One point and net run rate of -1.087.
While talking about the qualification scenarios for the semi-final, Chopra took a dig at Rizwan with his famous dialogue “Ya toh win hai, ya toh learn hai” that had come in Pakistan Super League.
“Jab tak khelte rahenge toh kuch na kuch seekhte rahenge, improve karte rahenge. Magar sirf ek hi cheez hai ki ya toh win hai aur ya toh learn hai (By the time we are playing, we will keep learning and improving. Either we win or we learn,” the comment from Rizwan had gone viral on social media for the player’s pronounciation of the word “learn”.
from: NDTV Sports-Latest