How Pakistan Won the 2017 Champions Trophy

Pakistan arrived at the 2017 Champions Trophy as the lowest-ranked of the eight qualifiers, having got in on a ranking cut-off two years earlier rather than on current form. They lost their first match to India by 124 runs in front of a record one-day crowd at Edgbaston. A fortnight later they beat the same side by 180 runs in the final at The Oval, which remains the largest winning margin in the history of that fixture at a global tournament final.

Nothing about the campaign was gradual. Pakistan were bad, then adequate, then very good, then briefly unplayable, and the four matches after the India defeat were won by margins of 19 runs, three wickets, eight wickets and 180 runs. It is the only Champions Trophy Pakistan have won, and the last edition of the tournament to be held before the competition went into a long hiatus.

The tournament, and Pakistan's record in it

The Champions Trophy began life in 1998 as a straight knockout, played to raise funds for the associate game, and evolved into a short eight-team one-day competition contested by the leading sides in the rankings. It was always the smaller of the ICC's one-day events, and its selling point was exactly that: no minnows, no dead rubbers, four or five matches and you are either champion or eliminated.

Pakistan's record in it before 2017 was respectable and no better. They had reached the semi-finals in more than one edition across the 2000s without ever playing in a final. That is a fair summary of Pakistani one-day cricket in that period as a whole — usually good enough to qualify, rarely good enough to win a knockout away from home.

The 2017 edition was played in England and Wales across three grounds: The Oval, Edgbaston and Sophia Gardens in Cardiff. Eight teams in two groups of four, top two through, one semi-final each, then a final at The Oval. Pakistan played five matches in fifteen days.

Ranked eighth of eight

Qualification for the 2017 tournament was decided by the ICC one-day rankings as they stood on 30 September 2015, which is how Pakistan came to be in a competition they would not have qualified for on 2017 form. By the time the tournament began they were the lowest-ranked side in it.

The squad reflected a side mid-rebuild. Sarfraz Ahmed had taken over the one-day captaincy only in February 2017. Mickey Arthur, the former South Africa and Australia coach, was in his first year in charge. Several senior players from the previous cycle had gone, and the batting depended on two veterans — Mohammad Hafeez and Shoaib Malik — plus a top order nobody could describe as settled.

There was also the structural problem Pakistan had carried since 2009. The team had no home international cricket to speak of, playing its notional home series in the Gulf, a period covered in the guide to Pakistan's home series in the UAE. Their most competitive domestic cricket was the Pakistan Super League, which had only been running since 2016 and was itself played outside the country.

Edgbaston, and a defeat that settled nothing

The tournament opened for Pakistan on 4 June against India in Group B, in front of an Edgbaston crowd of just over 24,000, a record for a one-day international at the ground. Rain reduced the match to 48 overs a side.

India made 319 for 3, with Rohit Sharma unbeaten on 91 and support through the innings. Pakistan, chasing a revised target under the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method, were bowled out for 164 and lost by 124 runs. It was not close at any stage, and the reaction at home was the usual one after a heavy defeat in that fixture, which is to say severe. The wider history of the fixture is set out in the guide to the India-Pakistan rivalry.

In a four-team group where two sides advance, that left Pakistan needing to beat both South Africa and Sri Lanka.

The changes made for South Africa

Pakistan brought in Fakhar Zaman for the South Africa match on 7 June, still at Edgbaston. He had played only a handful of one-day internationals and had come to the game late, through the navy and then domestic cricket, rather than through the age-group system.

South Africa batted first and were pegged back rather than blown away. Hasan Ali took three wickets for 24 and Pakistan bowled with unusual discipline in the middle overs. Rain then intervened during Pakistan's reply, and the match was decided on Duckworth-Lewis-Stern with Pakistan 19 runs ahead. Fakhar's contribution was 31, which was not the point; the point was that Pakistan had found an opener who scored at a rate the rest of the top order did not.

South Africa, who had entered the tournament as the top-ranked one-day side, went out.

Cardiff: 162 for 7, and 75 without loss

The Sri Lanka match at Sophia Gardens on 12 June was a straight knockout in everything but name. Sri Lanka made 236, a total Pakistan should have chased without drama, and then Pakistan collapsed to 162 for 7.

What followed was the innings that saved the campaign. Sarfraz Ahmed, who was dropped twice, made 61 not out. He was joined by Mohammad Amir, a fast bowler batting at number nine, who made 28 not out. The pair added 75 without being separated and Pakistan won by three wickets.

It is worth being clear about how thin the margin was. Two catches went down. Pakistan's seventh wicket fell with more than seventy still required. Had either chance been taken, Pakistan would have gone home in the group stage and the rest of this page would not exist.

The semi-final England did not expect

England, unbeaten and playing at home, met Pakistan at Cardiff on 14 June. They batted first and were bowled out for 211 on a used surface that offered more to the bowlers than England's batters seemed to expect. Hasan Ali took three for 35 and was named player of the match.

The chase was the most straightforward passage of cricket Pakistan played all tournament. Azhar Ali made 76 and Fakhar Zaman 57, they put on 118 for the first wicket, and Pakistan finished on 215 for 2 with 77 balls to spare. It was an eight-wicket win over the host nation and the tournament favourites, and it took Pakistan to their first Champions Trophy final.

Match	Opponent	Venue	Result
Group B	India	Edgbaston	Lost by 124 runs
Group B	South Africa	Edgbaston	Won by 19 runs (DLS)
Group B	Sri Lanka	Cardiff	Won by 3 wickets
Semi-final	England	Cardiff	Won by 8 wickets
Final	India	The Oval	Won by 180 runs

The no-ball, and Fakhar Zaman's 114

The final was at The Oval on 18 June. Pakistan batted first, and in the fourth over Fakhar Zaman edged Jasprit Bumrah behind on 3 and was caught. Bumrah had overstepped. The wicket did not count.

Fakhar went on to make 114 from 106 balls with twelve fours and three sixes, his first international century. He and Azhar Ali added 128 for the first wicket before Azhar was run out — ball-watching at the non-striker's end while Fakhar called him through — and the innings then simply kept accelerating. Hafeez finished unbeaten on 57 from a short stay at the end and Azhar's 59 anchored the start. Pakistan made 338 for 4, comfortably their highest total of the tournament and a score nobody watching the Edgbaston match a fortnight earlier would have predicted.

The Bumrah no-ball has become the shorthand for the match in India, which is understandable but overstates it. Fakhar was on 3 of 338. The nine hours of cricket that followed were not decided by one delivery.

Amir's first spell, and 158

India's reply lasted 30.3 overs. Mohammad Amir, the same bowler who had batted Pakistan out of trouble in Cardiff, removed India's top three inside the first nine overs. Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan — Dhawan finished the tournament as its leading run-scorer with 338 — were all gone with the score barely moving, and Amir's figures at the end read three wickets for 16 runs.

After that there was nothing to defend. Hardik Pandya hit 76 in a partisan sort of counter-attack and was run out, and India were bowled out for 158. Pakistan won by 180 runs.

Hasan Ali finished the tournament with 13 wickets, the most of any bowler, and was named player of the tournament. He, Sarfraz and Fakhar Zaman were all included in the ICC's team of the tournament. Hasan's method — hard-hit wicket-to-wicket seam bowling at a good pace, with reverse swing available late — was recognisably part of the tradition described in the guide to Pakistan's fast bowling lineage.

What became of the winners

Fakhar Zaman's career after the final is the clearest illustration of what the tournament unlocked. In July 2018 at the Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo he made 210 not out from 156 balls against Zimbabwe, the first one-day international double century by a Pakistan batter. He and Imam-ul-Haq put on 304 for the first wicket and Pakistan finished on 399 for 1. Two years earlier he had not been in the reckoning for a national contract.

Hasan Ali's peak was 2017 itself; injury and workload disrupted the following seasons, and his career since has been a series of recalls rather than a settled place. Mohammad Amir played on to the end of the decade and then retired from Test cricket while still in his twenties, which produced a public argument with the board that ran for some time. Sarfraz Ahmed lost the captaincy in 2019, kept playing first-class cricket for years afterwards, and eventually announced his retirement.

Azhar Ali, who made 76 in the semi-final and 59 in the final, never really established himself as a one-day opener afterwards and finished his career as a Test batter, which is the role he had always been better suited to.

Where it sits in the honours list

Pakistan have won three global men's trophies: the 1992 World Cup, the 2009 World Twenty20 and this one. Of the three it is the least celebrated abroad and, arguably, the most complete performance, because the two knockout matches were won by eight wickets and 180 runs against the two highest-ranked sides left in the competition.

What it did not do was fix anything. Pakistan were eliminated in the group stage of the 2019 World Cup, and when the Champions Trophy returned in 2025 with Pakistan as hosts and defending champions, they lost to New Zealand and India and went out before the semi-finals. India won that edition. The domestic structure behind the national side was restructured twice in the intervening years, a story told in the guides to the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy and to the rest of the game on the cricket in Pakistan hub.

The honest reading of 2017 is that Pakistan were a mid-table one-day side who assembled four excellent days in a fortnight, and that in an eight-team knockout tournament that is enough. It is also a reminder of why short ICC events are worth watching: a side ranked last on entry beat the two sides ranked first and second in the space of four days.

Sources and method

This page draws on the ICC's records for the 2017 Champions Trophy, the published scorecards for Pakistan's five matches, contemporary match reports of the final and semi-final, and the tournament's official award citations for Hasan Ali and the team of the tournament. Margins involving rain are given as they were officially recorded under the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method. Attendance is quoted only where the ground recorded it. Nothing on this page is derived from our own datasets; it is a descriptive account built from match records.