3 reasons why Indian fans should keep their expectations low for 2025 Champions Trophy
Now that India have won the 2024 men's T20 World Cup, getting an 11-year-old monkey off their backs, fans' expectations would be an era of all-format dominance with trophies flowing everywhere. But such excitement might not be prudent.
India men's next attempt at an ICC trophy would come in February and March next year in the form of the 2025 Champions Trophy. The tournament usually brings happy memories for the Men in Blue (forget the 2017 final, please!) because it's often an early test of a team shaping up for the ODI World Cup.
But India's recent 2-0 drubbing in Sri Lanka -- the first in 27 years in an ODI bilateral rubber -- has rung warning bells already. Here are three detailed reasons why Indian fans should see the red flags and not keep their hopes up for the Champions Trophy:
#3 Messed up schedule
The first issue, through which every other problem originates, is that the men's team's schedule is less than ideal. To prepare for a 50-over ICC tournament, you need 50-over bilaterals.
After the Sri Lanka series, India don't play another ODI till January 2025. This means they'll only have three more matches to find their best XI, zero in on good tactics, ready the back-ups and give players enough confidence to perform.
And as new head coach Gautam Gambhir is a three-format coach, he will have to keep his focus entirely on T20Is and Tests -- because well, he needs to win to prove he's good -- which will leave no time for behind-the-scenes preparations either.
With Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja's retirements, the T20I squad will be quite different than ODIs and Tests. So the players will always be coming in and out with no time to get used to the coach or his ideas for the 50-over format.
#2 Issues against spin with no time to solve
India didn't become a bad team against spin overnight -- Sri Lanka just exposed a long pending weakness for the 2023 World Cup runners-up. That tournament in India didn't put them through such tests because the wickets were quick, had good help for pacers and only a bit of turn in comparison.
On turning tracks with rough cracks in Sri Lanka, Indian batters lost 27 of 30 wickets to spinners which, according to ESPNCricinfo, is the highest for any team in any bilateral series of four or fewer matches. India, from top to bottom, don't have players habitual of playing high-quality spin and it's something every opponent would look to target after this rubber.
More importantly, because there are so many T20Is coming up, mostly on flat tracks, there's no time to refine technical issues. Some players might find the Tests helpful but ODIs present a different kind of pressure in terms of strike rotation and big-hitting.
From 'spin to win' a couple of days ago, it has become 'spin to win against India' which is not a good omen.
#1 New coach's experimentations
Now, you'd think that with so few ODIs to play ahead of the major tournament, India would only make minor changes to the all-time-great 2023 World Cup team and ready better back-ups etc. That's what needed to be done, at least.
However, a complete overhaul of the management brought new ideas. Gambhir, who's considered a big fan of left-hand right-hand combinations pushed Rahul Dravid's number four and five -- Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul -- down the order and brought in Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar and Axar Patel to take their places.
Now it is not to say that these ideas are wrong. The problem is we can't say that they are right because we don't have enough time to judge them.
The ideas we knew were right -- Iyer and Rahul had a fantastic World Cup campaign -- have been done away with and there's no time to go either way. Come the England series, there would be a lot of questions on the middle-order, with just a few weeks to go to the Champions Trophy.
And if not having a fixed middle-order ahead of an ICC event doesn't remind you of disasters, what would?