ICC Champions Trophy: SWOT Analysis of India's squad
The Indian squad for the 2017 Champions Trophy was finally selected on Monday and contrary to many who hoped for one or more left-field selections, it was a fairly conventional squad opted by the selection panel for the event, starting from the 1st of June.
This will be a significant event for Indian cricket as it will be the first time in 10 years that MS Dhoni will not lead India at a major event and Virat kohli who took over the reigns in all three formats will captain India in the defense of the crown they won in 2013.
Here’s a SWOT Analysis of the squad:
Strengths
Like is the case with most Indian squads picked for any competition, it is the batting which is always the most powerful trait and it is no different here as well. In Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh, India have an experienced core, suited to get tall scores or even chase them down.
Interestingly, four of the five above mentioned players also featured in the competition last time around, that was so dominated by Dhawan and Rohit, who laid an excellent foundation for the rest.
This time around, however, the impetus will be on Kohli and to an extent on Yuvraj as well, who will be playing his first major 50-over ICC event since the 2011 World Cup. In Dhoni, the team has a calm head, who understands 50-over cricket better than most.
The reason for these having to shoulder much of the responsibility is that Rohit will be returning after a long lay-off from the international game , although the IPL would have given him sufficient time in the middle and Dhawan too for India has not been setting the field ablaze and hence at least in the initial stages, one doesn’t know how they would get off the blocks.