Before the highly intense clash between India and Pakistan, the former Indian captain and former ICC chairman ‘Sourav Ganguly‘ had shown immense confidence in the Indian team by calling the team the most probable team to win this ICC Champions Trophy 2025.
“India is a powerful white-ball team. In the last 25 years, India has lost only once to Pakistan in a world tournament during this time. India is the favourite for this tournament to win the title. So, it won’t be easy for Pakistan to defeat India,” said Ganguly on Friday.
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Champions Trophy 2025: Ganguly talked about Indian Team for Champions Trophy
Champions Trophy 2025: Ganguly on Indian Batters
He also highlighted Abhishek Sharma’s standout performance in the recent T20 series against England, emphasizing the depth of India’s batting reserves. “The selectors and coaches have a tough job because everyone is performing at such a high level.”
He also talked about Abhishek Sharma’s performance in the T20 series against England, which shows the depth and reserve of talent India has. Lots of players are performing well in India and under these situations, this is not easy for selectors to avoid some players from taking them into the Indian squad. This is actually a good thing to see for the future of Indian cricket Team.
Sourav Ganguly also said that there is tough competition between K.L Rahul and Rishabh Pant as both of them bring different sets of qualities, and both are capable of winning big matches for India. It is not even easier for the captain and the team management to choose one of them.
Champions Trophy 2025: Ganguly on Mohammed Shami
While applauding Mohammed Shami’s five-wicket haul against Bangladesh, Ganguly stressed the importance of the partnership between Shami and Jasprit Bumrah. “Shami will continue to lead India’s pace attack. While Bumrah is undoubtedly the best fast bowler in the world, Shami is right up there too,” Ganguly observed. “The key for Shami is to stay fit and support Bumrah the way Bumrah has supported him in the past.”
Sourav Ganguly also applauded Mohammed Shami’s five-wicket haul against Bangladesh, he mentioned the importance of the partnership between Shami and Jasprit Bumrah in ICC events for India. Ganguly said “Shami will continue to lead India’s pace attack whenever the Indian team needs him to do that for India, on the other hand Bumrah is undoubtedly the best bowler in the world, but no one can always take the responsibility to lead continuously without getting injured, so Shami is their in absence of Bumrah to lead the side’s pace attack.
Champions Trophy 2025: Ganguly on Bad Form of Virat Kohli
He also addressed concerns about Virat Kohli’s soft dismissal against leg-spinner Rishad Hossain. Ganguly had shown confidence in the ability of Virat Kohli to bounce back during this ICC Champions Trophy. “With 81 international centuries under his name, Kohli has faced and scored lots of runs against leg-spinners before, and I have no doubt that he will overcome this setback and start scoring runs easily against leg-spinners,” Ganguly said it with conviction.
Winning Combination Likely to Remain Unchanged, Said Ganguly
“Pakistan doesn’t play spin very well and India has quality spinners like Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav. I presume this Dubai pitch will assist the ball to turn a bit and India will go with this combination which they had against Bangladesh in their last match of Champions Trophy.”
Team India’s dominant performance against Bangladesh has shown the team’s depth of batting, bowling and overall balance of the team. After their performance, it’s not easy to say that India is under pressure because of their batting, bowling and fielding at all. As per what Ganguly had said, he also expects India to maintain its winning combination against Pakistan, particularly when they already know that the current Pakistani batting line-up struggles against quality spin attack.
He also noted that, unlike the batting-friendly pitches in Pakistan, the batting conditions in Dubai might not favour a high-scoring match. Initially, pacers may dominate and later on spinners will continue to dominate over the batters with their quality spin bowling. “I don’t expect that this match will see a total of 300+ runs being scored by any side,” said Ganguly.
