This Bangladesh encounter shed light on what to expect in the remaining tournament.
From the general look, India’s win in their opening Champions Trophy 2025 fixture against Bangladesh looked convincing. It was far from that; the Men in Blue had to toil for this victory.
They had moments when they could have sealed the game but took longer in both innings to complete the job. This was also the first game in Dubai, where India will play all their matches, and this Bangladesh encounter shed light on what to expect in the remaining tournament.
We look at three early trends from India’s maiden contest in the Champions Trophy 2025.
Given the proceedings in the Bangladesh fixture, this might be a contrasting opinion, but batting first might be a way forward. While Bangladesh lost five wickets in 35 runs, most were due to poor shots and skillset issues, not the conditions.
In fact, the track kept getting better in the first innings, and Bangladesh reached a competitive total, with the ball coming nicely on the willow. Later, India struggled to find fluency after an early burst, which suggests the track won’t be as easy to bat in the second dig since it became slow and tricky for new batters.
Premium India batters have had issues against spinners, and chasing against teams like New Zealand, who have quality tweakers, can backfire. Rohit exclaimed he wanted to field first during the toss against Bangladesh, but the team management might rethink their decision after this encounter.
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Axar Patel is everything India’s ODI setup needed, especially for this tournament. He can bat anywhere and provide impetus. His bowling is slowly becoming a wicket-taking weapon and not just a run-stopping option.
Mohammed Shami and Harshit Rana are premium pacers, while Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav will do the job more often. That means Hardik Pandya doesn’t need to do the heavy lifting in the bowling department, as visible in the last two ODIs.
He bowled four overs against Bangladesh and five against England in the third ODI because Axar does more than enough with the ball. This will help Hardik focus more on his batting and show his power-hitting range, which will be crucial on these Dubai tracks due to Ravindra Jadeja’s recent batting form.
A trend that notably stood out in the last game was that the off-pace deliveries were more threatening for speedsters. Indian pacers bowled 25.36% of slower deliveries and took four wickets against Bangladesh in the opening game.
Indian bowlers read the conditions quite early and mixed it up brilliantly. This shows slower balls will work more in Dubai, and such deliveries might be a way forward.
𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐢'𝐬 𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 🤝 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐊𝐨𝐡𝐥𝐢'𝐬 𝐂𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡
— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) February 20, 2025
Shami claims his 3rd wicket, breaking the 154-run 6th wicket partnership, the highest in Champions Trophy history! 🤯
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This might also be the reason why Harshit Rana was picked over Arshdeep Singh in the opening game since Harshit has a better slower one. His off-pace deliveries stick more into the surface and become more difficult to hit.
India will go head-to-head with arch-rivals Pakistan on February 23 and New Zealand on March 2. Both contests will be played at the same venue – Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
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