England vs Pakistan Highlights, ICC Champions Trophy 2017: Pakistan edge out formidable England to enter final

England vs Pakistan Highlights, ICC Champions Trophy 2017: Azhar Ali, Fakhar Zaman shine as PAK beat ENG by 8 wickets

Pakistan on Thursday stormed into the finals of the ICC Champions Trophy after beating England by 8 wickets. Pakistan will play the winner of India vs Bangladesh on Thursday.

This is Pakistan’s third appearance in an ICC tournament after 1992, 1999 and this year (2017).

Chasing a modest target of 212 runs, Pakistan openers Azhar Ali and Fakhar Zaman got off to a brilliant century partnership.

It was in 2009 when an opening pair other than Rohit-Dhawan had century partnerships in Champions Trophy, before Fakhar- Azhar in this game.

England captain Eoin Morgan used six bowlers to end the partnership but nothing clicked for them.

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Zaman reached his half-century with 7 fours and a six while Ali reached his 50 in 68 balls with 3 fours and a solitary six.

England finally got the breakthrough in the 21st over after Zaman was stumped by Buttler.

Adil Rashid took Zaman’s wicket but the damage was already done by the opener. Pakistan’s Azahar Ali was the second wicket to fall as he departed for 76 runs.

Babar Azam scored a quick-fire 38 to make sure Pakistan won the match. His innings included a four and a six.

Mohammad Hafeez remained unbeaten on 31 off 21 balls hitting 3 fours and 2 sixes in the process.

Put into bat first, England didn’t have a start they’d expected. They lost opener Alex Hales in the 6th over itself for 13 runs. He was caught by Babar Azam off Rumman Raees’ ball.

Jonny Bairstow came in for Jason Roy in this match and he didn’t disappoint with the bat as he scored a 57-ball 43 runs and was unlucky to have missed out on his half-century.

Joe Root also batted well for his 46 runs before getting caught by the Pakistan skipper behind the stumps.

No England batsmen could complete his half-century. The English batting was slow right from the outset as they hardly got over the 4 runs per over mark.

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130 runs scored by England in 30 overs, is their third-lowest in ODIs since ICC World Cup 2015. The 12 boundaries were their second-lowest in this period.

Hasan Ali was the pick of the bowler for Pakistan as he took 3 important wickets. His victims were Morgan, Ben Stokes and Bairstow.

His bowling figures were 3/35 in his 10 overs.

Both Junaid Khan and Rumman Raees shared 2 wickets each between them.

A lack of partnership between the English batsmen cost them precious runs for their score board. Only the top four batsmen could carve more than 30+ runs between them.

England only hit 15 boundaries on Wednesday, the least in a completed innings since the Workd Cup 2015. This was also the first time they batted 25+ overs without a six in this period.

A clinical bowling display coupled with some brilliant fielding ensured England were restricted to 211 runs.

The final will be played on Sunday.