Champions Trophy 2025: Will Young and Tom Latham played centuries for New Zealand
ICC Champions Trophy 2025: The first match of the ongoing 9th season of the ICC Champions Trophy was played today on 19 February between Pakistan and New Zealand at the National Stadium in Karachi. Let us tell you that in this match, New Zealand defeated Pakistan by 60 runs.
Champions Trophy 2025: Losing the toss and batting first, New Zealand set a strong target of 321 runs for Pakistan to win, chasing which Pakistan’s entire batting was reduced to just 260 runs in 47.2 overs.
Champions Trophy 2025: Pakistan Vs New Zealand, Champions Trophy Match Status
Champions Trophy 2025: Talking about the match in detail, Pakistan won the toss and decided to bowl. After this, batting first, New Zealand scored a total of 320 runs for the loss of five wickets in the stipulated 50 overs. For the Kiwi team, opener Will Young played a brilliant century of 107 runs, while Tom Latham remained unbeaten at 118 *. Apart from this, Glenn Phillips contributed 61 runs.
On the other hand, if we talk about the bowling of the Pakistan cricket team, then today their bowling did not show any edge. After taking two wickets in the powerplay, the Pakistani bowlers could not get wickets at regular intervals. All three major fast bowlers of Pakistan, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, and Haris Rauf gave more than 60 runs in their quota of 10 overs. Naseem and Haris got 2-2 and Abrar Ahmed got 1 wicket.
Pakistan Came Out To Chase The Strong Target Of 321 Runs
After this, when Pakistan came out to chase the strong target of 321 runs given by New Zealand, it was reduced to just 260 runs in 47.2 overs. For Pakistan, only Babar Azam 64, Salman Ali Agha 42, and Khushdil Shah could play an innings of 69 runs. Saud Shakeel (6), Mohammad Rizwan (3), Tayyab Tahir (1), and Fakhar Zaman (24) were disappointed in their batting.
Clinical New Zealand down Pakistan in #ChampionsTrophy 2025 opener 👏#PAKvNZ 📝: https://t.co/E5MS83KLLA pic.twitter.com/JpcqY5664Q
— ICC (@ICC) February 19, 2025
On the other hand, the Kiwi team bowled brilliantly and took wickets at regular intervals. The Kiwi bowlers did not allow any big partnership between any Pakistani players. For the team, William O’Rourke and Mitchell Santner took 3-3 wickets, Matt Henry got 2 and Michael Bracewell and Nathan Smith got 1-1 wickets.
