Pakistan captain Mohammad Rizwan admitted on Thursday that his squad has not performed well in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 and they need to improve.
Speaking after rain washed out the match between Pakistan and Bangladesh, Rizwan said, “We wanted to do well and perform well in from of our nation. The expectations are very high. We didn’t perform well and it is disappointing for us.”
About the way forward, Rizwan said, “You can learn from your mistakes. We have made mistakes in the last few games. Hopefully, we can learn from these. We are next going to New Zealand and hopefully we can perform there and the mistakes that we did against New Zealand here in Pakistan, we can learn from that. And we will do better in New Zealand.”
Referring to the injured players, Rizwan said, “The guy who has been performing from the last few months in Australia, South Africa, Zimbabwe… the team was combined and then suddenly when someone is injured, the team will be disturbed. As a captain, you can look forward to that as well. One side you can say that the team is disturbed, but this no excuse. Yes, Fakhar Zaman and Saim Ayub were injured, but we will learn from this.”
When asked if he was happy with the bench strength of the Pakistani cricket team, Rizwan said, “This is a very tough question. The bench strength in Pakistan… let me see the five teams in the Pakistan Cup. We want improvements in different things. If we want to improve, and for Pakistan to have a high standard, we need awareness, professionalism. We see that in the Champions Cup, but we need more improvement.”
Responding to the question ‘how are you holding up?’ Rizwan said, “We are all very disappointed. We are all here for the nation. Pakistan is our priority and the expectation from us is very high. We are upset and we are accepting that we didn’t do well. Hopefully, we will do more hard work and comeback.”
