Yet they bounced back within days to defeat top-ranked SA, before sealing a last-four clash with tournament hosts England in Cardiff on Wednesday thanks to Monday's nail-biting three-wicket win over Sri Lanka in the Welsh capital. We knew we were going to play on a used wicket at some stage in this tournament.
Hasan Ali (three for 35) was exemplary as the Pakistan attack performed admirably - despite the key absence of Mohammad Amir with a last-minute back spasm - and with a top-score of just 46 from Joe Root, England fell badly short after being put in on a glorious day.
England's £1.7million man therefore had little option but to delay his charge deep into the last 10 overs - and his patience was not to be rewarded significantly before he mistimed an attempted big hit into the off-side ring off Hasan to go for a highly untypical 34 from 64 balls, having hit no boundaries.
"The last thing I want is for us to go away now thinking that we got to a semi-final, we're okay, we've achieved, because that would be a cop-out in my mind", he said.
"I think we've started brilliantly", said Morgan.
Senior members of the Pakistan team have been told not to give any unsolicited advice to captain, Sarfraz Ahmed. "Hopefully, he will recover for the finals", Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed said.
"Obviously he is our main bowler".
Star Maa announces Big Boss with NTR
Apparently, Star MAA is going to start Bigg Boss TV show very soon and Jr NTR has been roped in as the TV host for the show. As we all know Ulaganayagan Kamal Haasan will be stepping into the small screen industry as the host of "Big Boss Tamil".
But Arthur was in no doubt of England's quality, saying: "They're a really good one-day unit with no apparent weaknesses".
"I felt like we were trying to take a positive option against them".
Morgan tried to dominate Hasan at the start of his second spell, but instead edged behind from up the wicket when the seamer pushed the ball wider.
Pakistan certainly made had work of the chase after their bowlers had held Sri Lanka to 236 all out, with pacemen Junaid Khan (three for 40) and Hasan Ali (three for 43) doing the damage. And in Mark Wood, England have discovered a real game-changing bowler who looks unsafe on most surfaces and has been incredibly economical so far in the tournament - Wood has bowled more dot balls than any other bowler so far in the Champions Trophy. The southpaw ended hitting seven fours and a six, that came off a top edge over the wicketkeeper. He is No 7 in the ICC all-rounder rankings but had an all-round miserable game.
Smart money then remains with England, who, provided they can avoid the sort of calamitous collapse they produced in a recent ODI against South Africa at Lord's, look too strong in nearly all departments for Pakistan.
Mohammad Hafeez (31 not out) hit Stokes for a boundary to seal the win, sharing a 42-run partnership for the third wicket with Babar Azam (38 not out).
England were the only team to exit the group stage unbeaten, having won all three of their matches.
Comments