Although Pakistan has lost all its chances to be in the ICC Champions Trophy by losing all its group matches, this last group match is otherwise is meaningless as far the tournament is concerned. But meeting of India and Pakistan always draw large crowds and that too in Birmingham which is house to majority Pakistan and Indian families.
Therefore we see today a match between two countries with their long standing rivalry in cricket amid a volatile and emotionally charged crowd. For face saving, Pakistan would try its best to win the match, which though now seems very unlikely, as India which has already qualified for the semis by winning all its matches will like to maintain the winning momentum before playing semis.
From being the underdogs before the Champions Trophy began, India have become the team to beat. The last time both teams played, in India earlier this year, Pakistan had won the ODI series. One of the biggest factors behind India's struggle back then was the lack of momentum created by the openers.
So let us this match - a match being played for the crowd of both countries and to win over against the other - in fact today's match is more like a WWE's wrestling with lot of beating, action, suspense and drama. One can imagine the crowd interest from the fact that the tickets for the game were sold out within 30 minutes of being made available online.
India squad
MS Dhoni*†, R Ashwin, S Dhawan, RA Jadeja, KD Karthik†, V Kohli, B Kumar, A Mishra, IK Pathan, SK Raina, I Sharma, RG Sharma, M Vijay, R Vinay Kumar, UT Yadav
Pakistan squad
Misbah-ul-Haq*, Abdur Rehman, Asad Ali, Asad Shafiq, Ehsan Adil, Imran Farhat, Junaid Khan, Kamran Akmal†, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Irfan, Nasir Jamshed, Saeed Ajmal, Shoaib Malik, Umar Amin, Wahab Riaz
Umpires IJ Gould and RA Kettleborough
The match is scheduled on Saturday, 15 June (09:30 GMT) | at Edgbaston, Birmingham.
If you are one of the fans located at different destination and miss the chance to visit the stadium to watch your favorite team, You can now watch the match live on your laptop or desktop computer, FREE, provided you have an internet connection, from the links given below:
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