'We did a lot of mistakes': Rizwan opens up on Pakistan's humiliating defeat against India in Champions Trophy 2025

India on Sunday defeated arch-rivals Pakistan in their Champions Trophy 2025 clash in Dubai. Virat Kohli made the chase look easy with his classy unbeaten century. India won the match by 6 wickets and Kohli was named the Player of the Match. After the game, Pakistan skipper Mohammad Rizwan spoke about the team’s loss and where they went wrong in the game.

Rizwan admitted that Pakistan had targeted a score of 280 on the given surface but were restricted to just 240 due to disciplined Indian bowling, especially in the middle overs. He also emphasised that Pakistan struggled in all departments, particularly fielding, which cost them crucial moments.

“We won the toss, but we didn’t get the benefit of toss. We thought 280 was a good score on this pitch. In middle overs, their bowlers bowled very well and got our wickets. Me and Saud Shakeel, we took time because we wanted to take it deep. After that, wrong, poor shot selection. They put us under pressure and that’s why we were squeezed to 240,” Rizwan said after the match.

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“Whenever you lose, it means you didn’t perform in all departments. Early on, we attacked but they attacked more on us. We wanted to squeeze them, but we didn’t. Abrar gave us a wicket but other end they played really well. Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill took the game far away from us. We need to improve in our fielding as well. We did a lot of mistakes in this match and last match well. Hopefully we can work on them,” he added.

India vs Pakistan, Champions Trophy 2025

Chasing a tricky 242, India rode on Virat Kohli's 51st ODI ton , Shreyas Iyer’s classy 67-ball 56 and Shubman Gill’s brilliant start of 46 off 52 balls to overhaul the target with more than seven overs to spare.

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Pakistan, on the other hand, are on their way out of the tournament of which they are the hosts.

A large chunk of credit for this win can also be rightfully claimed by Indian bowlers, who were stunningly accurate while limiting Pakistan to 241.

That total was made possible by Saud Shakeel’s polished fifty and Khushdil’s cameo.

Shakeel (62, 76b, 5x4) was largely untroubled and added 104 runs for the third wicket with skipper Mohammad Rizwan (46), but Pakistan never really managed to break the shackles after opting to bat.

The pitch expectedly grew slow once the match entered the middle passage, and the precision of Indian bowlers made run-making a laboured task with left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav leading the way (3/40).

There was a period in Pakistan innings when both Rizwan and Shakeel failed to find the boundary rope for 55 consecutive deliveries.

India also had a couple of worrying points at this stage as veteran pacer Mohammed Shami and skipper Rohit Sharma had to stay off the field for some time.

Shami had to tend to his shin while Rohit looked in some discomfort primarily because of the heat here. However, both of them returned to the field to allay the concerns.

Rizwan’s adventurous shimmy down the track against Axar saw him losing the stumps, and from thereon Pakistan went on a downward spiral.

Shakeel, who played the pull with some conviction, perished to the same shot against Pandya, skying a simple catch to Axar in the deep.

Salman, Afridi and Naseem Shah fell to Kuldeep’s guile as India tightened their grip.

Khushdil (38, 39 balls) played a couple of big shots, including the first six of Pakistan innings, that helped his side reach a healthy total but Kohli’s brilliance was too high to match on the night.

(With agency inputs)