England have played some excellent cricket in the ICC Champions Trophy so far, having qualified for the semi-finals with three wins from their three matches in the group stages.
This is hardly a surprise considering England’s resurgence in the one-day game since their first round exit at the ICC World Cup in 2015.
Whenever England have needed someone to step up with the bat or the ball, they have found a player up their game and make a telling contribution.
An example of this being in their previous match against Australia when they found themselves 35-3 while chasing a target of 278, Ben Stokes and captain Eoin Morgan put on a brilliant counter-attacking partnership to win the game for their team.
One area of concern for the England team was the form of Jason Roy and they have decided to replace the Surrey opener with Jonny Bairstow.
.@eoin16 says there is a chance there could be a change to the team but it will be confirmed at the toss tomorrow#CT17 pic.twitter.com/VzfuWQbTme
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) June 13, 2017
A lot of people had written Pakistan off after their 124-run defeat against India in their opening match of the tournament. Since then, Sarfraz Ahmed and his team have come back strongly to make their way into the semi-finals.
Sarfraz, himself, was at the centre of Pakistan’s win over Sri Lanka in a virtual quarter-final on Monday. He scored an unbeaten 61 as he, along with Mohammad Amir, guided the Men in Green to victory, chasing down a target of 237 after being reduced to 162-7 at one stage.
This followed a brilliant bowling performance in a win over South Africa, the number one ranked ODI team in the world.
After the match against Sri Lanka, Pakistan skipper Sarfraz called England a world-class team and said that his side will look to play positive cricket on Wednesday.
“England is a very good team, a very, very good team. If you are playing a world-class team, definitely, you play more positive cricket, so we will do so against England,” he said.
Pakistan have made two changes with Shadab Khan and Rumman Raees replacing Faheem Ashraf and Mohammad Amir in the playing eleven. Amir is sitting out of this encounter due to back spasm.
Sarfraz with the best possible tribute to Javed on his 60th birthday
— Hassan Cheema (@mediagag) June 12, 2017
Date: June 14, 2017 (Wednesday)
Time: 13:30 GST, 10:30 local, 09:30 GMT, 15:00 IST, 14:30 PKT
Venue: Sophia Gardens, Cardiff
TV: UAE – OSN Sports Cricket HD
Full coverage on Sport360.com.
CONFIRMED ENGLAND XI: Bairstow, Hales, Root, Morgan (c), Stokes, Buttler (wk), Ali, Rashid, Plunkett, Wood, Ball.
CONFIRMED PAKISTAN XI: Azhar, Zaman, Babar, Hafeez, Malik, Sarfraz (c, wk), Imad, Shadab, Raees, Hasan, Junaid.
SPORT360 MATCH PREDICTION: England are favourites going into the match, but the way Pakistan have already proved people wrong in this tournament so far, you can’t rule them out.
