India will be one of the favourites to add another International Cricket Council (ICC) trophy to their cabinet when they kick off their Champions Trophy campaign against Bangladesh on February 20, and former India batter Suresh Raina believes Kuldeep Yadav‘s spin can play a key role in India’s push to win the title.
Picking his eleven to play consistently through the tournament, Raina said the presence of three spinners — allrounders Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel, besides Kuldeep Yadav — could turn out to be India’s best bet when it comes to creating pressure on the opposition batters at the Dubai International Stadium.
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While Pakistan is the official host nation of the tournament, India will play all their matches in Dubai as part of a hybrid model of the tournament after the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) refusal to send the team to Pakistan. As a result, the BCCI, ICC and the Pakistan Cricket Board reached an agreement, which included allowing India to play all their Champions Trophy matches in Dubai.
Talking about his playing XI on a Star Sports show, Raina said: “Kuldeep Yadav is going to be very important because Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja contain well in the middle overs, bowling stump to stump; and then Kuldeep can bring in his mystery spin, particularly against Pakistan who play the sweep shot well…New Zealand have a lot of left-handers. The kind of pressure Kuldeep can create and force the batters to go for the big shot, it can lead to wickets.”
India play archrivals Pakistan on February 23.
Against England in the recently concluded three-match ODI series, captain Rohit Sharma and head coach Gautam Gambhir preferred KL Rahul over Rishabh Pant to do the wicketkeeping duty.
While Raina picked Pant in his playing XI, he said it could well be Rahul continuing to do the job behind the stumps “because he looks in good form”.
India will be without their premier pacer Jasprit Bumrah for the tournament after he was ruled out because of a back injury that he suffered during the Sydney Test in January on the tour of Australia. He has been replaced by Harshit Rana.
“Rana provides variation, has a slow bouncer, can swing it,” said Raina.
“Hardik Pandya will play an important role; we haven’t used him much so far,” he added.
As far as the batting line-up is concerned, there was no surprise in Raina’s selection, while he picked Rana and Arshdeep Singh as the two specialist pacers, overlooking veteran Mohammed Shami.
Raina’s India playing XI for Champions Trophy: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (wk), Axar Patel, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav
