Meanwhile, afflicted by a back injury which prevented him from bowling for a major part in the fifth and final test at Sydney, ace fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah is unlikely to be a part of the 15-man squad for the global tournament, unless the selectors decide to take a chance with him to see if he can indeed recover before the knockouts of the event.
Playing all their matches in the eight-team Champions Trophy under a hybrid model in Dubai, launch their campaign against Bangladesh on Feb 20, before taking on arch-rivals Pakistan on Feb 23, and then New Zealand in their final league match on March 2.
The ODIs against England are scheduled for Feb 6, 9 and 12.
It will be interesting to see if the selectors pick veteran batsman Karun Nair, who has been in sensational form in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, where he has scored 752 runs in just seven innings at an incredible average of 752, with five hundreds-four on the trot, to steer Vidarbha into the VHT final for the first time will be picked for the global tournament.
The BCCI and the selectors have emphasized on the importance of domestic cricket in recent times, but it won’t be easy to make space in the ODI team for Nair.
“Whom do you drop if you have to pick Karun in the 15? You can’t drop someone like Shreyas Iyer, who smashed a century in the 2023 ODI World Cup semifinal at the Wankhede Stadium and has been in fabulous form across formats in domestic cricket. However, there is set to be a deep discussion on Karun,” a source in the BCCI told TOI.
India have played just six ODIs since their heart-breaking loss in the ODI World Cup final to Australia in Ahmedabad in Nov 2023, and lost an ODI series 2-1 in Sri Lanka in July last year.
