There will be competition with Pakistan Sri Lanka In the first match of the three-match ODI series. This article provides details about the Pakistan vs Sri Lanka playing 11 for the first match of the series.
Pakistan Playing XI vs Sri Lanka – 1st ODI, Pakistan tour of Sri Lanka 2025:
Openers: Fakhar Zaman, Saim Ayub
Pakistan will be looking to continue their home team’s momentum with a win in the first ODI against Sri Lanka as well as a win in the decider of the recently concluded series against South Africa.
The Pakistani selectors have shown confidence in the playing core against South Africa and have selected the same team that was involved in that particular series, except for Hasan Nawaz, who has been released from the team to play domestic cricket.
Pakistan would like to repeat the same performance that the team did while chasing a small target in the third ODI against South Africa.
Having said that, despite winning the game in question, the Shaheen Afridi-led side will be worried about Fakhar Zaman’s form at the top of the order as he failed to open his account in back-to-back matches.
The home team would like the aggressive left-handed batsman to score quickly and play in his natural style in the first ten overs to give the team a solid start against the Sri Lankan bowling lineup.
Fakhar’s teammate Saeem Ayub, on the other hand, has developed himself into a spin bowling all-rounder who can be relied upon to deliver good performances with both bat and ball and will look to continue the good work against Sri Lanka.
Middle-order batsmen and all-rounders: Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Salman Ali Aga, Hussain Talat, Mohammad Nawaz.
The middle order, which includes names like Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan and Salman Ali Aga, performed well in getting the team out of trouble on various occasions in the ODI series against South Africa.
However, all three experienced batsmen would like things to be different in the opening match against Sri Lanka.
Openers like Babar, Rizwan and Salman will be expected to take advantage of this to set the stage and play with freedom to put the opposition bowlers under pressure.
The onus will be on the top five batsmen to score most of the runs for the team and will not rely on the batting depth the team has to get the job done, which was a consistent feature of previous ODI series.
Bowlers: Shaheen Afridi (captain), Haris Rauf, Naseem Shah, Abrar Ahmed
It will be interesting to see how the pitch behaves during the first ODI.
This is because Pakistan have opted to prepare spin-friendly tackles in recent times, a move that has paid off, and the home team is expected to prepare a similar tackle for the upcoming match.
The spin-friendly wicket will mean that the Green team will go into the match with two specialist spinners and an equal number of specialist fast bowlers.
The responsibility of taking wickets in the first hour of the game will be on Shaheen Afridi along with Saim Ayub to make things easier for other bowlers in the middle overs.
Shaheen will get help from Naseem Shah and Haris Rauf in the fast bowling department, while Saim Ayub will be supported by Mohammad Nawaz and Abrar Ahmed as the other two spinners in the playing eleven.
