Pakistan cricket's majestic return home as hosts of an ICC event after 29 years has spectacularly disintegrated into an epic nightmare. The Men in Green are now on the brink of elimination, their Champions Trophy 2025 journey brutally truncated after back-to-back losses to New Zealand and arch-nemesis India. What makes this implosion so agonizing is the backdrop—Pakistan playing their first big ICC event since 1996, only to get eliminated in the group stage within a span of just four days. The pressure cooker cricket culture of Pakistan has finally boiled over, with the fans venting their fury on a team that had so much to give but gave so little. Captain Mohammad Rizwan and his players now have the unpalatable truth of a dead rubber against Bangladesh, while post-mortems on their performance are already underway. This article explores the three core issues that put paid to Pakistan's Champions Trophy campaign and turned their time in the limelight into a forgettable fiasco. 3 Reasons Why Pakistan Failed in Champions Trophy 2025 1. Ineffective Opening Pair Choice Image Source : Getty Images Pakistan's problems started even before the ball was bowled. The loss of talented young opener Saim Ayub, along with the removal of out-of-form Abdullah Shafique, left the top order with a huge gap. Things were made worse when their sole seasoned opener Fakhar Zaman was also injured following the first game against New Zealand. These conditions pressured the team into a series of last-ditch measures, best of which was to promote the middle-order batter Babar Azam to bat with the prematurely recalled Imam-ul-Haq. Also Read | The Epic India vs Pakistan Cricket Rivalry: A Comprehensive Head-to-Head Analysis This ad hoc pairing was a disaster. Babar's habitual approach—batting methodically rather than throwing himself at everything at the top—conflicted aggressively with an opener's requirements in contemporary ODI cricket. Statistics paint a damning picture: in merely seven innings opening, Babar has mustered 175 runs at a strike rate of 76, well below his already stodgy middle-order figures. His failure to change his mindset to accommodate the aggressive mindset required in the powerplay overs proved particularly expensive against India, where Pakistan was faced with an incredible 28 straight dot balls in the first six overs.Imam-ul-Haq, even though he had experience as an opener, also carried the same constraints. His career strike rate of around 85 is a reflection of a style that is reminiscent of an era of ODI cricket gone by. This opening combination set off a domino effect down the batting order—pressure was building with every dot ball, the middle order was left with impossible asking rates, and Pakistan's entire batting plan went haywire. When you throw 152 dot balls against India—essentially losing 25.2 overs of a 50-over match—loss is more or less unavoidable. As Shahid Afridi rightly pointed out, "In 2025 Pakistan was playing the cricket style of the 1980s and 1990s while other teams had progressed well to adopt an aggressive and modern style." 2. Underperforming Fast Bowlers Image Source : ESPN Pakistan's pace bowling three-pronged attack of Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, and Haris Rauf had been touted for years as among the most dangerous in world cricket. But when it really counted, at home, this potent attack imploded in a calamitous manner. Their performance statistics in the competition are stark reading: only two wickets each in two big games, economy rates that served to restrict few opposition batsmen. The move to rest these pacers from the previous Test series to "keep them fresh" boomeranged spectacularly. Instead of looking refreshed, they seemed rusty and short of match sharpness. Against New Zealand, they conceded more than 300 runs; against India, they could not defend what was admittedly a sub-par target but still needed disciplined bowling. Most worrying was their failure to manage the death overs, a Pakistani forte. Tactical deficiencies added to their technical deficiency. The pacers lacked an apparent strategy against opposition batsmen, especially in the face of partnerships. As Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer built their match-winning 100+ run partnership for India, Pakistan's quicks grew more and more clueless, failing to rupture the partnership or even halt the run flow. Hardik Pandya's display of how to bowl on these surfaces— registering 31 dot balls in mere eight overs—pointed to all that Pakistan's pacers were not doing. The eye-opening performance by what was going to be Pakistan's biggest plus has raised significant doubts about planning, preparation, and even possibly the very nature of these bowlers' approach to white-ball cricket in the modern conditions. 3. Wrong Team Selection and Strategy Image Source : Getty images Pakistan’s Champions Trophy campaign was undermined by a series of baffling strategic decisions, beginning with squad selection and extending to on-field tactics. Perhaps the most glaring error was the refusal to include a second specialist spinner despite playing on surfaces known to assist spin. Abrar Ahmed was left to carry the entire spin load himself with only part-timers Salman Agha and Khushdil Shah helping him out, who took one wicket in between them for two matches. Compare this to India's strategy: Kuldeep Yadav had a three-wicket haul against Pakistan, which showed the advantage of having good spin on such pitches.The rest of the selection committee's choices were also questionable. They brought back all-rounder Khushdil Shah and Faheem Ashraf on the basis of Bangladesh's T20 league performance, even though Ashraf had not played an ODI in two years and Khushdil in three. Ex-Pakistan captain Rashid Latif was not kind in his words when he called it a "political selection" implying influences other than cricket performance had influenced team selection. On-field decision-making didn't improve much. The turning point against India was when set batsmen Rizwan and Saud Shakeel, who had labored hard to put together a 104-run stand, threw away their wickets through loose shot choices. Rizwan was first yorked trying an unnecessary big shot off Axar Patel in the 34th over, and Shakeel unnecessarily pulled a short ball to deep mid-wicket in the next over. With 14 overs still to be bowled, these wickets doused Pakistan's hopes of setting up a competitive score. The failure to rotate strike—illustrated by those 152 dot balls—also reflected a team that was short on clear tactical guidance. All aspects of Pakistan's strategy, from pre-tournament preparation to in-match choices, appeared inherently flawed and disconnected from the requirements of contemporary cricket. Also Read | England vs Pakistan: Complete Head-to-Head Record in Test, ODI, T20I Conclusion Pakistan's Champions Trophy 2025 campaign will be looked back upon as a perfect storm of failures—poor preparation, antiquated cricket philosophy, and botched execution. What was supposed to be a victorious homecoming as hosts has turned into a harsh reality check for Pakistani cricket. The problems go beyond just losing games; they are symptomatic of deeper systemic issues that have enabled Pakistan to fall behind the changing ODI game. As bluntly expressed by Shahid Afridi, a "total makeover of the system" must take place in order to come up with the sort of aggressively-minded players cricket demands in modern cricket.Redemption will neither be easy nor short. Hard questions lie ahead regarding leadership, policy on selection, and even the overall style towards white-ball cricket. The agony of this tournament—crashing out in the group stage at home—could ultimately be needed if it finally triggers the revolution Pakistani cricket so urgently requires. In the meantime, however, Pakistan have to face the unpleasant reality: they were not victims of circumstance but masters of their own fate, through bad planning, old strategies, and an obstinate refusal to change with the demands of the game.