Although India doesn’t require a reminder, the Champions Trophy tagline, “All on the line,” which is displayed across the ground, perfectly captures the potential of this competition for India. Few could have predicted when the Rohit Sharma-Gautam Gambhir era started this season that the Champions Trophy, which was held only eight months after the team’s victory in the T20 World Cup, would end up becoming a competition that would shape many of their own futures.
The Champions Trophy might save the team’s face or be the tournament that puts an end to some after the tumultuous Australia trip exposed the team’s weaknesses. However, it’s also important to remember not to mix up the forms, as captain Rohit Sharma emphasized during the press conference. India truly showed symptoms of adopting a more aggressive style of cricket in ODIs before they became world champions in T20s. They were the tournament’s best team at the World Cup, the final 50-over ICC event, but Australia won the match.
Naturally, a lot could depend on this tournament for players like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Gautam Gambhir’s support staff. However, there was no indication that the team was carrying any baggage in the camp, especially without their most valued player, Jasprit Bumrah. If anything, they were in a laid-back mood, which may have been largely caused by the team’s ongoing sickness. They decided to conduct a laid-back training session the night before the game. India took Tuesday off after two training sessions since arriving here on Friday, and Wednesday was a light day without any net sessions. Before the batsmen had a few underarm throwdowns in the outfield, they instead engaged in a little foot volley.
The scene was completely different with the bowling unit. Three frontline seamers—Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, and Harshit Rana—have been selected by India for the event in Bumrah’s absence. Arshdeep only participated in the one game against England out of the three, and he hasn’t yet established himself in the format, in contrast to T20Is. Rana has had trouble bowling with the new ball since making his debut against England. India is now heavily reliant on Shami, who has been having trouble finding his flow ever since he returned from a protracted injury layoff. “Shami has played only two games and then obviously a couple of T20s as well. All we wanted with Shami was to get back wearing the Indian colours more than anything else. Whether he gets wickets or not, that was completely immaterial for us at that point. We wanted him to get back to playing for India and he has done that and whatever I have seen of him so far looks perfectly fine. When you talk about an older player like Shami who has done the job over the years so many times for us, for them it is just about getting back to their rhythm and hopefully we can find some result early on in this tournament and help the team,” Rohit said.
Rohit’s ambitions for Shami are not without justification. If anything, the Dubai pitch tends to help pacers like Shami who smash the seam and create movement, according to former India player and UAE coach Robin Singh, who is familiar with the conditions here, as he informed this publication. When that happens there are few fast bowlers who could exploit the condition as good as Shami does. The thin resources on the seam-bowling front where Hardik Pandya is expected to increase his load.
On the other hand, India has the most well-rounded attack when it comes to spin bowling. Few teams could hope to match the variety that Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, and Washington Sundar offer. However, there are many doubts about their choice to select five players for the trip given the surfaces have historically helped seamers.
Additionally, Rohit’s response to the question of why he chose the five provided a sufficient hint of India’s intentions. “There are two spinners (Kuldeep Yadav and Varun), and the other three are all-rounders, so I am not looking at it as five spinners. Those three guys can bat and bowl,” Rohit remarked. “We work on our strengths, and those three guys (Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Washington Sundar) give a different dimension to our combination and add depth. That is why we wanted to get players with two skills rather than one.”
India believes that the best way to advance this team and build on the success of the 50-over World Cup is to have depth in both bowling and batting. India intends to make the most of Jadeja and Axar, who are expected to start here with Kuldeep, since the top four are all right-handers and Pant is only available as cover. For the time being, Varun and Washington will have to warm the bench.
It is known that India intends to use Varun to his full potential in the latter stages of the competition. Since he has been given permission to work on his recent niggle, his inclusion will be determined more by the opponent than by the requirements. India appears ready to win another ICC championship, especially considering how crowded the other teams are and how they have the advantage of playing all of their games in Dubai. They have arrived here with a clear blueprint. How far it works will decide how far they go in this tournament.
