Australia and England want to overcome their recent ODI setback in Lahore

Considering that Australia and England have been victorious in the last two ICC ODI tournaments, they should be amongst the favourites to win this time around. However, for different reasons, both these teams come into the 2025 Champions Trophy with hardly any momentum. Australia endured two severe losses about a week or so ago in Sri Lanka. This would seriously harm the confidence of any team and if that side is already undermanned to begin with as a few first choice players here are absent, then there should be genuine concern. For the More Latest Cricket & Sports News Update, Click Here

Australia has lost their last four matches in a row and has failed to record over 200 runs in any of those games. That batting order looks short on confidence, and for this reason alone they will be relieved to start their campaign at a venue which has produced three hundreds recently. While the batting unit at least comprises of some recognized players like Travis Head, stand-in skipper Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne, and Glenn Maxwell, the scrutiny will be on the bowling unit tomorrow and for the rest of the tournament. Since the 2016 T20 World Cup, Australia will be entering an ICC event for the first time without their first-choice pace-bowling trio of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, and Josh Hazlewood. Even though the Aussies have won this tournament two times in the past, they haven’t been able to win a trophy lately, and they have failed to win a single game in the last two editions.

At least the current world champions face challenging players’ injuries. But that is not the case for England. Like Australia, their batting unit will also rejoice at having to play in the placid conditions of Pakistan following the recent beating in India. Let us not forget England’s title defense in the 2023 ODI World Cup did not go exactly to fruition. Brendon McCullum’s recent appointement to the white-ball coach’s position exempted him from much blame, but alongside Jos Buttler, he would certainly be scrutinized had England suffered yet another early exit from a global tournament.

Like Australia, England would also want to be part of an elite group and be the only others to win all three major ICC white-ball tournaments with the Champions Trophy being the only piece of silverware that’s eluding them. To achieve that, there’s nothing better than making a statement early in the tournament especially against one of the arch rivals knowing well that it will severely dent their chances of qualifying in a tournament with such a short format.