Former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting outlined the main reasons for Pakistan’s early elimination from the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.
The tournament’s hosts and the defending champions Pakistan became the first team to face an exit alongside Bangladesh after suffering back-to-back defeats against New Zealand and India. Especially, Indian star batter Virat Kohli’s 51st ODI ton completely snatched away the victory from the claws of the men-in-green.
Even after having a squad equipped with talented players, the men in green failed to deliver match-winning performances. In addition, Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan’s experience proved to be ineffective as they weren’t able to deliver the expected contribution to their side.
The inability of the bowlers to provide important breakthroughs at crucial moments of the group-stage matches, particularly against India resulted in Pakistan’s CT 2025 campaign ending abruptly.
Ricky Ponting Reveals Pakistan’s Shortcomings in Champions Trophy 2025
As a well-known cricket analyst, Ricky Ponting shared his thoughts on why Pakistan failed to make an impact in Champions Trophy 2025 by pointing out their inability to make use of the core players strategically. The two-time World Cup-winning captain feels that the team was overly dependent on Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan :
“See! They failed to provide their best to the team. Those two batters (Babar and Rizwan) were supposed to step up and accumulate huge runs. However, they haven’t been able to perform upto the expectations in the first two matches. This is the main reason why Pakistan didn’t qualify for the knockouts,” Ponting said while speaking on The ICC Review.
The 50-year-old ex-Aussie cricketer conveys that Pakistan’s batting order was completely reliant on its top order and the lack of effort from the talented batters has left the middle order to become vulnerable.
When it comes to compiling challenging totals or chasing targets, Babar and Rizwan had to heavily shoulder the pressure, which is one of the main reasons for Pakistan’s collapse in the ninth edition of the tournament.
Most importantly, the failure to adapt to different conditions, old-fashioned batting style with a defensive approach, and lack of adherence to a proper game plan resulted in Pakistan’s batting performance falling prey to their opponent’s bowling attack.
Pointing Showers Praises Virat Kohli’s Performance in Big Matches
Ricky Ponting had a perfect chance to highlight the fact that great players make use of big matches to prove their mettle in high-pressure situations. He cites the example of India’s ace batter Virat Kohli for being outstanding in such challenging circumstances. Ponting heaped praises on Kohli for another spectacular performance against Pakistan, strengthening his reputation as one of the greatest cricketers at the international level:
“Yeah! As I have always been saying big matches often require big players. If you hope for your star players to step up to the challenge, there isn’t a bigger contest than the India vs Pakistan clash.
You need to know that based on your performance in bigger matches on an international stage, your reputation is created. So, it isn’t a surprising fact to me that Kohli showed up his best in a crucial match for his team scoring a century in a most awaited match against Pakistan. He has delivered such performances several times in his career.
Earlier, his match-winning knock against Pakistan in the T20 World Cup 2022 steered his team to chase down the target in challenging conditions. Now, once again he compiled another incredible score in the ICC tournament.
Pakistan skipper Rizwan opted to bat first on a tricky pitch. Moreover, India needed a batter from the top order to play a longer innings. Once again, it was Virat Kohli, who scored a big knock,” Ponting added.
The legendary Aussie cricketer’s statement makes a comparison between Pakistan’s hardships and Kohli’s capability to perform his absolute best in highly complex situations.
Final Opinion:
For the first time in 16 years, the hosting nation of the Champions Trophy has been eliminated from the tournament. The previous instance was in the 2009 edition, when South Africa as the hosts failed to qualify for the semis.
Furthermore, this is Pakistan’s third consecutive early elimination during group stages, following the T20 World Cup 2024 and ODI World Cup 2023.
Although Pakistan is yet to play their last group stage match against Bangladesh on February 27 (Thursday) in Rawalpindi, a win or loss wouldn’t make any difference. This is because India and New Zealand are the confirmed semifinalists from Group A.
However, the Kiwis have made the proceedings simpler for Team India. In other words, the men-in-blue and the Black Caps have qualified for the semis with one match left as these two teams face off against each other in the last group-stage match on March 02 (Sunday) in Dubai before entering into the knockout stages of the tournament.