File photo of Indian cricket team.© AFP
After India announced their squad for their upcoming five-match T20Is against England, the entire focus has shifted to their yet-to-be-announced team for ODIs against the side and the Champions Trophy 2025. While India’s one-dayers against England begin on February 6, the ICC event is set to start on 19th of the month. The wait for the squads to be announced continues and BCCI vice-president Rajeev Shukla has given a big update on that. During an interaction with media on Sunday, Shukla informed that the selection meeting for the Champions Trophy will be held on January 18 or 19.
India play their Champions Trophy opener against Bangladesh on February 20. Under the hybrid model, India will all play their games in Dubai while the other league games will be played in host country Pakistan.
Star batter Rohit Sharma will remain Indian captain till the ICC Champions Trophy this year, claimed an ANI report.
Also, pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah is being discussed as India’s next captain, the report added.
Rohit’s captaincy has been a mix of memorable highs and some extremely disappointing lows. Be it a 10-match winning streak during the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup at home, which concluded with a loss to Australia in the final or India’s redemption with an ICC T20 World Cup title win in 2024 at Barbados, Rohit’s captaincy has given fans plenty of positives. Under him, team also made it to the final of the ICC World Test Championship 2023, where they lost to Australia.
However, since the second half of 2024, luck seems to have deserted the ‘Hitman’ both as a batter and captain. In the 2024/25 Test season which started with the home series against Bangladesh, Rohit scored just 164 runs in eight matches and 15 innings at an average of 10.93 with the best score of 52. During the recently-concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy, he could make just 31 runs in three Tests with best score of 10. His form struggles were such that he opted out of the final Test at Sydney.
As a captain, Rohit touched some embarrassing lows as of late. Just before the Test series against Australia, India lost their first home Test series in 12 years, to New Zealand by 0-3. This was also their first-ever whitewash in a home Test series of three matches or more.
(With agency inputs)
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