ICC Champions Trophy 2025

[PKBasu]

I agree that Rahul's 'keeping is beginning to cost us -- and will be more risky against the better teams in the SF and final. So Pant may be worth a punt, although it would have been better to try him and Arshdeep in one of the earlier matches. But perhaps the surprise will work, as it did with Varun

[prasen9]

[PKBasu]

No punt with Pant.

India are unchanged, and Australia have made 1 run off the bat in the first 3 overs, and lost a wicket to Shami. 6/1 after 3.2 overs (5 wides, implying 25 balls bowled so far, one run off the bat).

[PKBasu]

Shami dropped Head off the second ball of the match (after a wide on the first ball). It was a reasonable caught and bowled chance. Head making it pay now, with a six and four on consecutive balls from Hardik.

[PKBasu]

And...it's Head vs India. Travis Head 26 off 19. Extras 5. Aus 31/1.

[PKBasu]

Varun gets the big man. Head gives in to hubris, and is gone!

After Head's impetus (39 off 33 balls), Aus are still a comfortable 63/2 after 10 overs. Smith and Labuschagne, supposedly great players of spin, now face a key test.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Stage is again set... to find who is a big match player and who is champion of useless bilaterals

[prasen9]

Rohit did some weird captaincy here not bowling out Axar and Jadeja and giving overs to Hardik. Maybe he did not want to risk a huge over with a spinner towards the end. But, then, Kuldeep should not have gotten so many overs. Axar and Jadeja were the most accurate and got wickets and should have been bowled out earlier ...

I am hoping for a great innings by Rohit.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Once bowling quality improves. Gill starts struggling. He looked different against below par England, Pak & Bangladesh attack

[prasen9]

Nobody succeeds every single game. That said, I don't know what his record is in knockout games. He does have some technical deficiencies.

Rohit needs to stop trying to be over-aggressive. How about targeting 50-0 or even 45-1 instead of 55-2 or whatever we got today. In the final, how about Gill and Rohit try to bat at a SR of 90 or so in the first 5 overs and not 120 or whatever Rohit is trying. Gill sometimes goes very slow. Today he did well in not eating up balls. Somebody must have talked to him a bit to be mindful of the number of balls he is eating up at the start.

Very good match otherwise. We defeated the #2, #3, and #4 teams in the ODI rankings to make the final. I don't like facing NZ and they play spin better. I hope RSA wins against NZ. We are 50% against NZ in ICC ODI tournaments. Against Australia, we are seriously under 50%. Go RSA.

[Atithee]

Rahul haters still hate him? I think he has been a key bat for us pretty much throughout the tournament. Yes, his keeping could be better, but he is also spectacular many times as a keeper. Pant’s temperament, but it is an asset it also a big liability. Rahul has a better match sense and temperament. I’d not play Pant over him at least in ODIs.

[prasen9]

He is certainly a better batter and a worse keeper than Pant. Pant is at the Jadeja, Hardik level of consistency, which is a level below Kohli, Rohit, Gill, Iyer, Rahul level in ODIs. Rahul gives a calm head in the middle order.

In this tournament, runrate or ability to bat fast is not a factor. Pant certainly can play faster in ODIs when there are 4 fielders in the outfield than Rahul. Pant cannot find boundaries consistently without getting out in T20Is. In T20Is, we should play Rahul as the keeper. For ODIs, the keeping matters.

My problem has been the dropped catches. He dropped two against New Zealand and if I remember correctly one in each match before that. How many runs does that cost? Rahul gives us 15 runs more with his bat per innings. A dropped catch on these grounds maybe costs 25 runs? Or should it be less because of the over constraints? That is, a good team on these wickets scores about 250-260. If we give them 11 wickets or 12 how much more would they score? I am not sure. I had Rahul in my first team for the group matches. Then, seeing the NZ wickets that spun the most, I thought Pant would be the better bet. Actually, even with Pant, we win this match. He plays the Axar role, Hardik was told to hit, he can play the Rahul innings here and then Axar plays the Hardik innings ... but it would be more drama and one fluke out and we are really wobbly given Jadeja is less reliable with the bat.

I still think that Pant can be the better bet for the final. Rohit is giving his wicket away trying to up the runrate at the top of the order. Maybe ask him to go a bit slower with Pant having the responsibility to hit big in the middle order? That way we recover the runs we lose from Rahul -> Pant via Rohit?

Steven Smith retired from ODIs. Legend. I have the utmost respect for Smith, possibly the greatest batsman of these times. I love how he wants to bat, wants to play, how his mind works every ball trying to figure out what happened and coming up with a solution.

Can Rohit end with a century too in his last ODI? (my prediction: he will retire after this match)

[prasen9]

Glenn Phillips is a brilliant fielder and can bowl a bit. They are playing him instead of Conway, who is a superb batsman. Interesting choice. Although they have three spinners in Ravindra, Bracewell and Santner, and pacers Jamieson, O'Rourke, and Henry, almost all of whom can bat. Given their batting did not hold up in Dubai, at least, if they get into the final, maybe they should look at improving their batting by including Conway at the cost of more bowling flexibility and fielding excellence? Conway is not a bad fielder himself too ...

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Jamieson, Henry, Santner are terror for Indian batting.

[prasen9]

I don't like Rachin Ravindra's batting either. Or Williamson. I hope they don't get stuck.