Ahmedabad: Head coach Gautam Gambhir confirmed that KL Rahul is India's first-choice wicket-keeper for the upcoming Champions Trophy 2025 ahead of Rishabh Pant, who was not included in the playing eleven against England despite him being included in the squad for the ICC event.
Among all the players that were chosen for the England ODIs and Champions Trophy, Pant emerged as the only player not to get a chance as all the others got at least one game if not three.
Rahul, who batted at No. 6 in the first two games, didn't look comfortable at all. He got an opportunity to bat No. 5 in the third and final ODI of the series and scored 40 off 29 balls in India's loop-sided 142-run victory.
"Ultimately, it is very difficult to talk about individuals. But all I can say is that if he is part of the squad when the time comes, he might get an opportunity. But at the moment, obviously, KL is the No. 1 wicketkeeper and he has delivered for us," Gambhir said at the press conference.
"When you've got two wicketkeepers in the squad, you can't play both the wicketkeepers with the kind of quality we've got. Hopefully, whenever he (Pant) gets that opportunity, he should be ready for it. That's all I can say at the moment. Yes, KL is the one who's going to start," Gambhir added.
Gambhir also asserted that while there will never be a case of ticking all boxes without specifying what India did not achieve, he praised the team for the all-round show. "See, there will never be a case where all the boxes will be ticked, but yes, (it is a) good result, the important thing is that we were very very professional today," he said.
"We could have easily seen this game as a dead rubber, but the important thing was that we wanted to try and put ourselves under pressure, we wanted to try and play this game as a must-win game and guys actually turned up like that.”
Gambhir emphasised that he cannot share all the details about India's pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah's injury, but it's the medical team at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) who should be able to provide an update.
"Obviously he has been ruled out. But all the details I can't give you because it's up to the medical team to talk about how long is he going to be out for and stuff because it's the medical team that decides at NCA,” he said.
Gambhir said India wanted to manage Mohammed Shami's workload which is why the bowler played two matches each in the T20I and ODI series.
"We were trying to manage his workload, that's the reason why we played him in two T20s and two ODIs and hopefully he's going to be fresh and ready to go in the Champions Trophy," he said.
The coach also clarified that Men in Blue wanted another wicket-taker in the middle overs along with Kuldeep Yadav and Varun Chakravarthy could become an X factor for India in the upcoming ICC event.
"The only reason was because we wanted another wicket-taking option in the middle and we know that's what Varun Chakravarthy brings to the table," the coach said.
"We know that Varun can be a massive threat and with a lot of teams who haven't played him he could be an X-factor as well. I'm not going to say that he's going to start and all that stuff but it's always good to have a strong bowling line-up. We know that if he can actually get those wickets in the middle, it's always going to be an advantage and that was one of the reasons otherwise we know that Yashasvi has got a fabulous future ahead, it's just that we could only pick 15," Gambhir added.
