Rift between Gautam Gambhir and Ajit Agarkar ahead of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025
Gautam Gambhir and Ajit Agarkar have had a heated debate regarding the middle-order spot of the Indian team ahead of the Champions Trophy.
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Ajit Agarkar and Gautam Gambhir (via BCCI/X)
Indian cricket has seen plenty of drama in recent months, starting with Gautam Gambhir‘s appointment as head coach. With the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy in Dubai on the horizon, Team India is already gearing up. Meanwhile, they recently dominated England at home, securing a 3-0 series victory.
Ahead of the series, chief selector Ajit Agarkar announced that Rishabh Pant will be the primary wicketkeeper-batter of the team. However, the team management played KL Rahul as the wicketkeeper-batter in all three matches of the recent series. After the series, Gambhir even stressed the fact that Rahul will be the primary wicketkeeper-batter in the Champions Trophy.
Meanwhile, a report from Sportskeeda has stated that there has been a heated debate between Agarkar and Gambhir regarding the middle order of the team. In the first ODI, Shreyas Iyer confirmed that he would not have played if Virat Kohli was fit to play in that match. However, Iyer justified his stake at number four with two half-centuries in the series.
Gambhir primarily wanted Yashasvi Jaiswal in the team and wanted him to open the innings with Rohit Sharma. However, Agarkar wanted the presence of Iyer at number four in the team, given that he has been mighty consistent in the ODI format in the last two years since the ODI World Cup 2023.
India will play the first match of the Champions Trophy 2025 against Bangladesh
Team India won’t be traveling to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy and will be playing all their matches in Dubai. They will start their campaign with a match against Bangladesh on February 20. They will then face off against Pakistan in the next match on February 23 and finish off the group stages with a match against New Zealand on March 2.
India have five spinners in their squad and will ideally play three of them in the playing XI. Therefore, they will be heavily dependent on their spin attack to win matches for the team. In the three-pronged spin attack, they will have the likes of Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja, who will also be part of the top eight in the batting order.
India have won the Champions Trophy twice, in 2002 and 2013. They qualified for the final in the 2017 Champions Trophy but lost to Pakistan at the Oval. They are coming to this tournament on the back of a win in the T20 World Cup 2024 under Sharma.
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Rohit Sarkar
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