India's journey at the 2025 Champions Trophy will begin on Thursday with the 2013 winners set to take on Bangladesh at the Dubai International Stadium. Ahead of their first game Indian skipper Rohit Sharma revealed India's "secret to success" depends on their top order firing on full cylinders. Although India's campaign at the 2023 ICC World Cup ended in heartbreak, the host nation had completely dominated all opposition on their way to the final in Ahmedabad and much of that success relied on their heavy firing top order.
Virat Kohli and Rohit were the two highest scorers at the tournament with 765 and 597 runs respectively and Shreyas Iyer, with 530 runs in the tournament, perfectly complemented the Indian top order.
“Scoring hundreds at the top is the secret to success. Our top 4 is settled and experienced. They understand that between the top 4 one of them has to get a century. But in the World Cup we chipped and didn't have a lot of hundreds and still got big totals. Everyone wants to chip and not look at individual milestones and every batsman has to do the job. If 7-8 of us think like that we will be in a good position,”said Rohit in a press conference.
India will also be heavily relying on vice-captain Shubman Gill who claimed the No.1 spot on the latest ICC Men's ODI player rankings released on Wednesday. Gill has been in excellent form of late, with his century against England in Ahmedabad during the third ODI of the recently concluded series enough to catapult the 25-year-old to the top of the rankings.
Rohit also took the time to applaud his deputy for the "crazy numbers" being scored by the 25-year-old.
“Gill is a classy player and there was no doubt about him. We keep mixing formats, but he has been doing well in the format. His numbers are crazy. He has been superb for us. There is a reason why he is elevated to vice captain,” he added.
With India not with the services of their star pacer Jasprit Bumrah and questions being raised regarding the fitness of Mohammed Shami, a lot of focus falls on India's spin-heavy squad which includes five spin bowling options in Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, and Varun Chakravarthy.
Rohit also shut down any criticism on including five spinners by stating the team is playing to their strengths.
"We have two spinners and three all-rounders. I am not looking at them as five spinners. Jadeja, Axar, and Washi (Washington Sundar) give us a lot of depth. Many other teams carry six pacers when they have pace-bowling all-rounders. No one says they have one pacer too many. That's their strength, and we focus on our strengths.” Rohit said.
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