India captain Rohit Sharma on Wednesday defended picking five spinners in the Champions Trophy squad, saying three of them are all-rounders who add a lot of value to his team. Varun Chakaravarthy and Kuldeep Yadav are the two specialists spinners while the other options in that department are Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Washington Sundar, who all are very capable batters. The spin-heavy side has three fast-bowling options in the form of Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh and Harshit Rana with Hardik Pandya being the sole pace all-rounder.
The inclusion of five spinners in India's Champions Trophy squad has attracted plenty of attention but captain Rohit Sharma on Wednesday defended the selectors' call, saying three of them are all-rounders who add a lot of value to his team.
Varun Chakaravarthy and Kuldeep Yadav are the two specialists spinners while the other options in that department are Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Washington Sundar, who all are very capable batters.
The spin-heavy side has three fast-bowling options in the form of Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh and Harshit Rana with Hardik Pandya being the sole pace all-rounder.
"There are two spinners, and the other three are all-rounders, so I am not looking at them as five spinners, those three guys can bat and can bowl also.
"In the rest of the teams, the fast bowlers are all-rounders, so they say that they have taken six fast bowlers, which is good, but we play to our strength (spin)," Rohit told reporters when asked about the spin heavy composition of the side.
The injured Jasprit Bumrah's absence has put additional responsibility on Mohammed Shami, who is yet to regain his full rhythm following a comeback from injury.
India prefer to bat deep and that explains the presence of three spin all-rounders in the side.
"Jadeja, Axar, Washy, give us a different dimension to our squad and add a lot to this team and give us a lot of depth, that is why we wanted to try and get the players who can have two skills rather than one skill." Dubai has seen rain in the last couple of days and India might have to deal with overcast conditions in their tournament opener against Bangladesh on Thursday.
Be it batting or bowling, Rohit said his team is ready to tackle the prevailing conditions and batting deep will only help them. Dew is also a factor at the Dubai International Stadium.
"We have the arsenal to combat that, if there are conditions which is helping the bowlers, with the overhead conditions, the bowlers are there to exploit that and the batters, if we bat in those overhead conditions, they exactly know what to do.
"So, I think it's about all 7-8 batters chipping in whether you get big score or not but all 7-8 batters need to contribute.
"I have seen it in the recent past where even without scoring a 100, the teams have managed to get par score or above par score in ODI format because everybody wants to chip in and everybody has chipped in. That will be our focus."