Pakistan have played according to their 'unpredictable team' tag in the tournament so far. They have registered wins against tournament favourites England and South Africa.
On the other hand, New Zealand have been a team which has improved constantly with each passing game. Their batting is led by skipper Kane Williamson who has been in tremendous form and has already scored two daddy hundreds.
TOSS UPDATE: New Zealand won the toss and opted to bat against Pakistan at Birmingham. Both teams remain unchanged.
Sarfaraz Ahmed: We wanted to bat first and we are not worried about the conditions as that is not in our hand. Good to see him (Amir) back in form and others also bowled really well especially in the last game. Catching is a concern and hopefully we will do well as a fielding unit today.
Kane Williamson: We are going to have a bat. Very cold conditions and it's a used pitch. There might be a bit of swing early on and we are gonna try and negotiate that early. We are going with horses-for-courses type of mentality. There was some consideration (about team changes) with this being played on a used surface, but we have gone with the same team.
Teams:
Pakistan (Playing XI): Imam-ul-Haq, Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam, Mohammad Hafeez, Haris Sohail, Sarfaraz Ahmed(w/c), Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Wahab Riaz, Mohammad Amir, Shaheen Afridi
New Zealand (Playing XI): Martin Guptill, Colin Munro, Kane Williamson(c), Ross Taylor, Tom Latham(w), James Neesham, Colin de Grandhomme, Mitchell Santner, Matt Henry, Lockie Ferguson, Trent Boult