The hosting nation Pakistan will start the Champions Trophy tournament against New Zealand on February 19th in Karachi. This will be their first hosting after 28 years.
They are currently in Group A along with India, Bangladesh and New Zealand. They will meet their arch-rival on February 23rd in Dubai. Although the team is yet to be announced.
Now former Pakistan women’s head coach, Basit Ali, wanted that former skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed should be the mentor of the team as it will help the team to defeat the Men In Blue. They were the defending champions as they won the last Champions Trophy that happened in 2017.
During that time Sarfaraz was the leader of the team and defeated India in the final by a huge margin of 180 runs. Although they also met in the group stage where the Indian team remained victorious against the Men In Green and won the match by 124 runs (DLS method).
Basit on his official youtube channel also said that Afghanistan did a commendable job after appointing Younis Khan as a mentor before the ICC tournament and the PCB is still sleeping as they need to hire former Pak skipper to the team as a mentor role only.
He said, “Afghanistan appointed the great Younis Khan as mentor, who is a good choice. People in Pakistan must be sleeping, so is the board. They need a mentor against India, someone who won the Champions Trophy the last time: Sarfaraz Ahmed. In this match, Sarfaraz’s suggestions will work. He has the experience of lifting the trophy against them. I won’t take anyone else’s name. He led the team to victory.”
Basit was not coach of the Women’s national side but also contributed his coaching role towards Pakistan A team and was the chief selector for the women team during 2016.