The 2013 Champions Trophy winner made a few interesting calls.
With Jasprit Bumrah getting ruled out at the last moment, India made a couple of changes to the 15-man squad. Harshit Rana, who was named Bumrah’s cover made a late entry while the selectors also decided to drop young talented batter Yashasvi Jaiswal and replace him with a spin-bowling option in Varun Chakravarthy.
Head coach Gambhir justified Varun’s inclusion given his ability to take wickets.
However, India’s 2013 Champions Trophy winner Suresh Raina decided to ignore the X-factor player while naming his playing XI for the Champions Trophy 2025.
Talking about the team composition on a Star Sports show, Raina said,
“Kuldeep Yadav is going to be very important because Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja contain well in the middle overs, bowling stump to stump; and then Kuldeep can bring in his mystery spin, particularly against Pakistan who play the sweep shot well…New Zealand have a lot of left-handers. The kind of pressure Kuldeep can create and force the batters to go for the big shot, it can lead to wickets.”
In the pace department, Raina picked Harshit Rana and Arshdeep Singh as the two specialist fast bowlers, overlooking veteran Mohammed Shami.
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Coming to the wicketkeeping position, although the Indian selectors had opted for KL Rahul in the role during the recently concluded ODIs against England, Raina had a different stance.
While Raina picked Pant in his playing XI, he also maintained that it could be Rahul continuing to do the job behind the wickets since “he looks in good form”.
As far as the rest of the batting line-up is concerned, there were no more surprises in Raina’s selection.
Suresh Raina’s Playing XI for Champions Trophy 2025
Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (WK), Axar Patel, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav.
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