3 min readFeb 10, 2025 07:10 PM IST
First published on: Feb 10, 2025 at 07:10 PM IST
With less than ten days to go for the 2025 Champions Trophy to be played in Pakistan and Dubai, hosts Pakistan under skipper Mohammad Rizwan would be hoping to win the trophy, which they won in the tournament’s last edition in 2017. Banking on a hundred by opener Fakhar Zaman, Pakistan had scored a ten-wicket win over India to register their third win against India in Champions Trophy to win the title in England. 34-year-old Zaman has made a comeback to the Pakistan team for the 2025 Champions Trophy and the opener, who has amassed 3576 runs in 83 ODIs in his career, has shared how he almost missed the final.
“I was not well the day before the game. I even talked to Mickey (Mickey Arthur) and said I won’t be able to play the game. He said you go out there and get a duck first ball, it doesn’t matter, you have to play that game. I managed to play but I remember that I didn’t sleep well that night and he forced me to play. I’m pleased he did!” Zaman told the International Cricket Council (ICC) website.
While India skipper Virat Kohli had won the toss and elected to bowl first at a packed Oval on June 19, 2017, Pakistan openers Fakhar Zaman and Azhar Ali added 128 runs for the first wicket. Zaman, who went in to play a knock of 114 runs off 106 balls in Pakistan’s total of 338 for 4 in the allotted 50 over, Zaman gave an easy catch to Indian wicket-keeper MS Dhoni off a Jasprit Bumrah delivery followed by umpire Kumar Dharmasena calling it a no-ball. It means that Zaman went on to score 101 more runs in the match with Pakistan eventually winning the match by 180 runs. “I had been talking to Shadab (Khan) and somebody got out on a no-ball when we were watching a game. I said ‘I’d love to get out to a no-ball’. I just said it randomly because whenever you get out, I always look to the umpire hoping they will say ‘wait while we check the no-ball’ and nothing happens and I end up back in the dressing room. The same thing happened in that game, I got out to a no-ball. Kumar Dharmasena was the third umpire and I was going out. From the boundary, he said ‘wait there’. I was halfway back and when I saw that, I was 100% sure it was a no-ball. After that, I thought maybe it’s my day,” recalled Zaman.
Zaman, who made a comeback to the Pakistan team for the tri-nation series and Champions Trophy, had last played an ODI for Pakistan in 2023 World Cup before he played against in the first match of the tri-nation series last week. Zaman remembered how the Champions Trophy win in 2017 was special for the whole country. “It was special back in Pakistan. I didn’t expect anything like that and I have never seen anything like that in my whole life. For many weeks, people from 500km or more away would come to take a picture. It was unbelievable and it was something special. The way we made people at that time, I wish I could do more things like that,” said Zaman.
Pakistan's Fakhar Zaman plays a shot during the tri-series ODI cricket match between Pakistan and New Zealand at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025. (AP Photo) 
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