Champions Trophy squad selection: India adopt high-risk high-reward approach

Bengaluru: It aligns with head coach Gautam Gambhir’s high-risk-high-reward approach but can India’s Champions Trophy squad, having lost its game-changing pace talisman Jasprit Bumrah to injury, deliver the goods at the ODI showpiece? The answer to that question is not particularly straightforward given the audacious calls taken to decide the final 15. The selection risks start with the drafting in of five spinners. The Dubai-bound flight will feature Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav and Varun Chakravarthy in a spin-heavy bowling attack.

Harshit Rana has replaced Bumrah with the more experienced Mohammed Siraj relegated to the group of non-travelling reserves alongside young batter Yashasvi Jaiswal and all-rounder Shivam Dube.

“The Dubai surface has a bit more carry than say in Sharjah, and the pacers here have found some good success and that’s why Pakistan has picked more pacers in their squad, though they are supposed to play only a couple of matches here,” a former national selector told PTI. “If you use the new ball well, then you can have a good purchase there. I am not faulting the selection of Varun. He is in good form, but I would have liked to see one more experienced pacer in that side, someone like Siraj,” he added.

From outside, having five spinners looks like an over-estimation of the conditions. But the management took a chance with Chakravarthy because of his excellent recent form. Chakravarthy has been trusted to deliver in a multi-nation tournament, after his failure to do so in the T20 World Cup 2021 at the same venue. What might have tilted the scales in his favour is the fact that none of India’s league stage opposition in the Champions Trophy -- Bangladesh, Pakistan and New Zealand -- have played him before. The way he managed to trouble England in the ongoing home series on account of being an unknown entity for the visitors also worked to his advantage. But on the flip side, it leaves Kuldeep Yadav in peril. With Jadeja and Axar being the first-choice spinners considering their batting prowess, the fight for the third spinner’s slot will be between Kuldeep and Chakravarthy.

If India follows the template of the recent second ODI against England at Cuttack, Chakravarthy can pip the left-arm wrist spinner, at least in the initial stages of the Champions Trophy.

Another selection paradox is placing Rana ahead of Siraj as Bumrah’s replacement for a tournament in which teams will have to do the tight-rope walk of three matches in the league phase. Conventional thinking says that experience more than explosiveness matters in such events, but the wise men went ahead with Rana.

A common line of thinking can be that the selectors wanted a bowler with some mystery element about him in the squad once Bumrah was ruled out with a lower back injury. So, they picked an in-form Chakravarthy. Fair call. But why select him in place of Jaiswal, an opener? Should they have replaced a spinner for him? Perhaps Washington Sundar could have been the one to be omitted to accommodate Chakravarthy.

However, in one shot, the selectors have also avoided the opening conundrum that haunted them in the first ODI against England at Nagpur.

It was tough to accommodate Jaiswal and Shreyas Iyer in the same eleven but an injury to Virat Kohli gave them a temporary relief.