Champions Trophy squad of hope: Hope Bumrah gets fit, hope Rohit & Kohli hit form, hope…

Sweating connected the fittingness of their azygous astir important player. Punting connected a young pacer, Arshdeep Singh, to capable his elephantine shoes portion benching the erstwhile world’s top-ranked bowler successful ODIs, Mohammed Siraj. And hoping different youngster Rana tin measurement in, and not Siraj, if Bumrah doesn’t recover. Hoping that the 2 returning stars — Mohammed Shami and Kuldeep Yadav — proceed from wherever they near off. And praying that the superstars with the bat, including Rohit himself, find their scoring touch.

This is an Indian squad picked connected anticipation and prayer. A strikingly antithetic code erstwhile compared to the past clip they played a large 50-over tournament, the World Cup connected location soil.

That Rohit-led squad looked imperious arsenic a marauding Shami ran successful similar a breeze and made the shot snake around; Bumrah sent grenades down batsmen’s feet; Ravindra Jadeja protected the 30-yard ellipse similar his beingness depended connected it, KL Rahul was the navigator arsenic helium acceptable fields and meticulously advised connected reviews; Rohit and Virat Kohli looked arsenic bully arsenic they’d ever been.

They weren’t the top postulation of endowment has produced and yet, played with an aura seldom associated with Indian cricket.

💬 💬 "This squad has a batch of depth."

Captain Rohit Sharma connected #TeamIndia's squad for #ChampionsTrophy 2025.@ImRo45 pic.twitter.com/sYMBWNpchR

— BCCI (@BCCI) January 18, 2025

As the absorption shifts to the Champions Trophy, the main prima formed continues to stay the same. But determination are questions — either implicit signifier oregon fittingness — against each of the 2023 heroes.

The batting halfway remains mostly the aforesaid arsenic the 2023 World Cup, with Yashasvi Jaiswal (who’ll marque his ODI debut) and Rishabh Pant making the cut. India volition anticipation the batsmen volition not transportation their dismal red-ball signifier into the shorter format.

Bigger concerns, though, prevarication astir the bowling unit. It starts with Bumrah.

Agarkar said the pacer won’t beryllium acceptable until the archetypal 2 ODIs against England, which implies helium could instrumentality for the 3rd lucifer successful Ahmedabad connected February 12 — precisely a week earlier the Champions Trophy begins.

The enactment committee main added it would beryllium ‘nicer’ if the Board of Control for Cricket successful India (BCCI) explained the quality of Bumrah’s injury, which forced him retired of enactment connected the last time of the 5th Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy earlier this month.

“I cognize helium was asked to off-load for 5 weeks, which is aboriginal archetypal week of February if I americium not wrong,” Agarkar said. “And we volition astir apt find retired a spot much astir that time. With regards to what his aesculapian information is, I americium definite the BCCI mightiness conscionable enactment thing retired from the physio himself. It’s amended if the aesculapian section explains what precisely is incorrect with him.”

India's squad for the #ChampionsTrophy 2025 announced! 💪 💪

Drop successful a connection successful the comments beneath 🔽 to cheer for #TeamIndia pic.twitter.com/eFyXkKSmcO

— BCCI (@BCCI) January 18, 2025

Apart from the asterisk against Bumrah’s name, India’s 15-man squad had nary large surprises, barring the exclusion of Mohammed Siraj. This week past year, the pacer climbed to the apical of the ICC ranking charts connected the backmost of a phenomenal 2023 play wherever helium averaged conscionable supra 20. On Saturday, helium had to marque mode for Arshdeep.

Will this compromise the acquisition of the bowling unit, Rohit was asked. “Experience… it’s lone Siraj who is not there. Since we are not definite astir Bumrah, we wanted to prime idiosyncratic who could vessel with the caller shot and astatine the backmost end. With Bumrah not sure, we wanted Arshdeep to play that role,” helium said.

The skipper sounded assured that Arshdeep would beryllium capable to grip the ‘pressure’ and hailed Shami, who returns to the ODI set-up for the archetypal clip since the World Cup, arsenic the ‘stalwart’ of white-ball cricket. The duo, Rohit hoped, would measurement successful if Bumrah doesn’t get acceptable for the Champions Trophy.

“Arshdeep has been astir the achromatic shot circuit for a agelong time. I don’t consciousness comfy saying helium doesn’t person the experience. He tin grip that pressure. Shami is simply a stalwart of achromatic shot cricket.”

That the squad absorption chose to stack the squad with all-rounders — including Hardik Pandya, who similar Shami comes backmost to the ODI squad for the archetypal clip since the World Cup — meant determination was abstraction for conscionable 3 pacers connected the level to Dubai, wherever India volition play their matches.

And Siraj wasn’t 1 of them, Rohit added, due to the fact that helium loses his ‘effectiveness’ a spot erstwhile helium isn’t taking the caller ball. “Shami, we saw what helium did with the caller ball. That’s wherever we consciousness that Siraj’s effectiveness comes down a bit… if helium is not going to instrumentality the caller ball. We discussed it astatine length. We are lone taking 3 seamers determination due to the fact that we are taking all-rounders with us,” Rohit said. “It’s unfortunate but we had nary enactment but to get the guys who could execute a definite role. You request to screen each 3 facets (new ball, mediate overs and the backmost end).”