Ruturaj Gaikwad will lead CSK in IPL 2025 (Source:@CskIPLTeam/X.com)
The Champions Trophy is back after a gap of eight long years. For over a year, there was suspense on who will host the 2025 edition and finally the hybrid model has been finalised where India matches will be played in Dubai while rest of the games will be played in Pakistan.
The Men in Blue were the finalists of the last edition and also qualified for the final of the 2023 World Cup. So, they have been a consistent 50-over team for a long time now, and are one of the favourites to lift the trophy in the Champions Trophy 2025.
As always there are some heated debates around the composition of the Indian team for the mega event and with truckloads of talent, there are bound to be some talented players who will miss out. There will be some big players as well who will miss out, and some of them are even leading IPL franchises.
So, here are the three players who are set to lead their IPL franchises in the 2025 edition but might miss out from the Champions Trophy 2025
Sanju Samson
Sanju Samson has been leading Rajasthan Royals since the 2021 season and the franchise played quite well in the last cycle under him. Samson's own form has been pretty good in the last couple of years and the man recently made headlines with three T20I centuries in five matches for India.
However, such is the competition in the Indian team that despite scoring a century in his last ODI, Samson did not find a place in the Indian ODI squad for Sri Lanka series. The team management decided to go with KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant in that series and those two are likely to be preferred in the Champions Trophy as well.
Rahul has done well in ODIs in the last few years while Pant has always been backed in white-ball formats because of his exploits in Test Cricket. Sanju Samson also did not play Vijay Hazare Trophy recently and it has further lessen his chances of making a comeback in the ODI squad.
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Ruturaj Gaikwad
The CSK skipper despite his good record in domestic as well as at the international level has not been able to find a consistent place in the Indian side. He last played for India in the Zimbabwe T20Is, and did pretty well, but the team management has ignored him in the recent times and it is likely to be the case in the upcoming India matches as well.
In the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Ruturaj Gaikwad scored 148 off 74 balls against Services. However, he has failed in other five matches and with plenty of top order options at India's disposal, Ruturaj Gaikwad with ODI average of 19.16 is likely to miss out of Champions Trophy.
Rajat Patidar
The RCB star is another player who is likely to miss out from India's squad of Champions Trophy 2025. According to the reports, Patidar is likely to lead Royal Challengers Bengaluru in IPL 2025 after doing well as a captain and batter for Madhya Pradesh in SMAT 2024.
The right-handed batter scored 132 off 137 balls against Bengal recently, but he could not get big scores in other Vijay Hazare Trophy matches and has not played for India since his debut series against South Africa in December 2023.
He has played only one ODI so far, and so the selectors are likely to back experienced players in the Champions Trophy squad and the future RCB skipper is likely to miss Champions Trophy ticket.
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