Indian cricket team in action during Champions Trophy 2025© AFP
India have won all of their matches in their Champions Trophy 2025 campaign till now. They emerged unbeaten in the group stage and completely outplayed Australia in the semifinal. However, legendary India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar said that there were places where the team can still improve despite outplaying every team till now. He said that India have not produced a lot of wickets in the middle overs despite keeping the runs in check and also pointed out the lack of successful partnerships for the opening wicket. He also demanded more wickets with the new ball from the pacers in the first 10 overs.
“They haven’t because when you look at the openers, they haven’t really given the Indian team the kind of start that they had hoped for. That has not happened. So, clearly, I think there’s a shortcoming over there. Even with the new ball, you might want to in the first 10 overs. You definitely want to take about 2 or 3 wickets. That’s also not quite been happening. In the middle overs, we have not got wickets, even though the runs have not been flowing. So those are areas that you get better in those areas, the better the chances of going on and winning the final,” Gavaskar said on India Today.
Gavaskar also believes that India should make no changes to their playing XI and stick to the formula of playing 4 spinners. He explained that the inclusion of both Varun Chakravarthy and Kuldeep Yadav has bolstered India’s attack and they should not tamper with the winning combination.
“I think it is going to be 4 spinners. It has to be. Why change now? It’s shown Chakravarthy’s inclusion, Kuldeep’s inclusion has shown how effective they can be. And also, wicket-taking balls are the best dot balls in limited-overs cricket or any format of the game. So they’ve been doing that, so there should be no change at all,” the legendary cricketer added.
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