The spinners’ impressive performances have been crucial for the Indian team.
| Photo Credit: AP
India’s preparation for the Champions Trophy has been built around the mantra ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Two years ago, Rohit Sharma’s men enthralled the cricketing world by dominating the ODI World Cup, clinically breezing past its opponents.
It took something extraordinary to halt Rohit & Co., and Australia managed to do that in the final. Despite the heart-wrenching loss, India was the standout team of the tournament.
Since November 2023, India had played only nine ODIs before going into the Champions Trophy campaign.
While most top players did not participate in the three-match joust against South Africa in December ’23, the near full-strength squad was humbled 0-2 on Sri Lanka’s spin-friendly surfaces in August ’24.
Experimenting with combinations
There were a few experiments against the Lankans, the first series under coach Gautam Gambhir. The team focused on having a mix of left and right-handed options. There was also an effort to try and have multi-dimensional players, having some batters rolling their arms over.
In terms of personnel, Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja were not picked as the team wanted to evaluate the likes of Axar Patel, Washington Sundar and Shivam Dube.
However, for the series against England last month, the think-tank decided to revert to the combination that worked well during the quadrennial event, making only minor tweaks.
A fit-again Hardik has provided flexibility and balance
| Photo Credit:
PTI
Barring Axar, seven of the top-eight batters were part of the World Cup. The all-rounder added depth to the squad, allowing the luxury of fielding six bowlers.
More importantly, a fit-again Hardik has provided flexibility and balance. India missed this in the latter half of the World Cup following his injury midway through the campaign.
Spin-heavy squad
When the squad for the Champions Trophy was announced, there was a feeling that India was spin-heavy. However, as Rohit and Gambhir pointed out, there were only two specialist tweakers — Kuldeep Yadav and Varun Chakaravarthy — while Jadeja, Axar and Washington were genuine all-rounders.
Over the last fortnight, the team management has been proved right as the slow surfaces in Dubai, where the Men in Blue are based, have been a spinners’ paradise.
Rohit also explained the reason for including Varun in the place of Yashasvi Jaiswal, a move that raised eyebrows as a spinner was replacing a batter.
“Looking at the pitches here and hearing about what happened in Dubai in the past two months, when a lot of cricket was played, we knew they were going to be slow. We were watching the ILT20 played here and thought the slower bowlers would find the pitches a lot more helpful.”
The fact that India fielded four of the slow variety, and just one frontline fast bowler (Mohammed Shami) — Hardik is seen as a seam-up option — in the two big games against the Kiwis and Aussies showed the captain’s conviction.
Like it did two years ago during the stirring run World Cup at home, India has made short work of its opponents enroute the decider and will fancy its chances of regaining the ‘mini’ World Cup.
Published – March 07, 2025 10:36 pm IST
