When asked about the spinner's inclusion, Rohit Sharma said Chakravarthy was picked for a reason. Chakravarthy was a last-minute addition to the squad with opener Yashasvi Jaiswal making way for the mystery spinner. Chakravarthy has got the opportunity following a stellar season in the T20 format
Rohit Sharma (Pic: File Pic)
For the Champions Trophy 2025, Team India has reached Dubai with five spinners and that has attracted plenty of attention. Team India skipper Rohit Sharma has defended the call by saying that three of them are all-rounders who add value to his side.
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Varun Chakravarthy and Kuldeep Yadav are the two specialist spinners and other options in the spin department are Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Washington Sundar.
In the Champions Trophy 2025, Team India has also travelled with three pacers, namely Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh and Harshit Rana. Additionally, Hardik Pandya has been a premier pace all-rounder for the side over the years.
"There are two spinners, and the other three are all-rounders, so I am not looking at them as five spinners, those three guys can bat and can bowl also.
"In the rest of the teams, the fast bowlers are all-rounders, so they say that they have taken six fast bowlers, which is good, but we play to our strength (spin)," Rohit told reporters when asked about the spin-heavy composition of the side.
In the Champions Trophy 2025, Jasprit Bumrah's absence will put additional responsibility on Shami who is yet to regain his form.
India prefers to bat deep and that explains the presence of three spin all-rounders in the side.
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"Jadeja, Axar, Washy, give us a different dimension to our squad and add a lot to this team and give us a lot of depth, that is why we wanted to try and get the players who can have two skills rather than one skill."
Dubai has seen rain in the last couple of days and India might have to deal with overcast conditions in their tournament opener against Bangladesh on Thursday.
Be it batting or bowling, the Rohit Sharma-led side is ready to tackle any problems.
"We have the arsenal to combat that, if there are conditions which is helping the bowlers, with the overhead conditions, the bowlers are there to exploit that and the batters, if we bat in those overhead conditions, they exactly know what to do.
"So, I think it's about all 7-8 batters chipping in whether you get big score or not but all 7-8 batters need to contribute.
"I have seen it in the recent past where even without scoring a 100, the teams have managed to get par score or above par score in ODI format because everybody wants to chip in and everybody has chipped in. That will be our focus."
Chakravarthy was a last-minute addition to the squad with opener Yashasvi Jaiswal making way for the mystery spinner. Chakravarthy has got the opportunity following a stellar season in the T20 format.
When asked about the spinner's inclusion, Rohit Sharma said Chakravarthy was picked for a reason.
"He doesn't throw many variations in the net. He throws the ball in the same way. Maybe he doesn't even want to show us what he has (laughs). But that is a good thing. He has got a certain weapon that he wants to put out there when it actually matters.
" I am more than happy if he wants to do that. But he has got something different which is why he is here with us. Whatever we have seen of him in the last 8-9 months, it has been very impressive."
Both Mohammed Shami and Kuldeep Yadav have not played a lot of international cricket due to injuries. They are back in the side but are yet to hit their strides. In Bumrah's absence, expectations have increased from Shami, who was the best bowler for India in the 2023 ODI World Cup.
"They both are fine when it comes to bowling fitness. Shami has played only two ODIs and 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.
" Whatever I have seen of him so far, he looks absolutely fine. When you talk about a bowler 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 rhythm early on in this tournament and help the team."
On Kuldeep, Rohit Sharma said, "Kuldeep, again very similar, was injured, had a hernia operation just after the New Zealand series and was out of action for two and a half months.
" For him also it was important to get back playing and get back into that rhythm. The two games that he played, the numbers will not show and with certain players you don't have to look at numbers so much and in detail.
"For certain players it is just about getting back to playing. If these two guys are in form, the team looks very good."
(With PTI Inputs)
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