As Pakistan face severe difficulties in the opening pair & Fakhar Zaman being out of form, the Green Caps would make a major change by including Abdullah Shafique in the playing XI for the encounter against Sri Lanka. Abdullah Shafique replaced Fakhar in the Asia Cup match encounter vs Sri Lanka and scored his maiden ODI century.
In the last 16 matches, the Pakistani openers only provided one century stand. The stats of last five matches present a miserable picture as the pair only registered 35 runs as the highest opening partnership. Fakhar Zaman only scored 12 runs against Netherlands and the overall opening stand was of 15 runs.
Pakistan head coach Grant Bradburn still believes the top order would click and has shown confidence in the batters. He stated that the management has full faith in our top order which would click at some stage. Bradburn further accepted Pakistan was not getting the best results in the powerplay.