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Why Rohit Sharma Has Dropped Varun Chakaravarthy In IND Vs BAN Champions Trophy Match?

Abhinav Tyagi

Varun Chakaravarthy- (Source:@Johns/X.com)Varun Chakaravarthy- (Source:@Johns/X.com)

On Thursday, February 20, India locked horns against Bangladesh in their first match of Champions Trophy 2025 at the Dubai International Stadium. The Tigers won the toss and opted to bat first. Meanwhile, Rohit Sharma also admitted that India would have looked to field first anyhow. 

Surprisingly, India made two surprise calls as they left out Arshdeep Singh and opted for Harshit Rana ahead of him in the pecking order. Further, another major change was that Rohit Sharma and the team management went ahead with Kuldeep Yadav ahead of Varun Chakaravarthy, who has been India's leading run-getter in 2025. 

Thus, this article will shed light on why India have opted for Kuldeep ahead of Varun Chakaravarthy.

Why Did India Pick Kuldeep Yadav Ahead Of Varun Chakaravarthy?

It is worth noting that Kuldeep returned to the Indian team for England ODIs after a long time time following an injury setback. He featured in the 1st ODI, but was left out of the 2nd match where India went ahead with Varun. However, Kuldeep returned for the 3rd ODI to get match ready.

One of the major reason behind the move to pick Kuldeep ahead of Varun can be DC star's experience in ICC events. Notably, Kuldeep is leading wicket-taker in the world in ODIs since 2017 Champions Trophy. He has 174 wickets in 108 games, which makes it nearly impossible for him to be left out in such an important match, where he knows how to absorb pressure.

Varun, on the other end,  is among the wickets, but he lacks ICC events experience. The last he played was in 2021 T20 World Cup, where he went for runs that too at the Dubai international stadium. 

Since, there is no scope of error in Champions Trophy, India have gone ahead with their tested combination and not look for any experiment.