Bumrah excluded; Varun makes the final CT team

Jasprit Bumrah, who was appointed in India’s preliminary teams, has been excluded from the 2025 Champions Trophy with a lower back injury, BCCI revealed Tuesday (February 11). Harshit Rana has been named Bumrah’s replacement for the eight-team tournament.

Bumrah, who was the star artist in India’s border-gavascar Trophy campaign in Australia, was the captain of the team in the last test in Sydney, but had to leave the field midway on day 2 due to a back problem and did not bowl for the rest of the match. He was originally named in the troop of the third ODI against England (subject to fitness), but the recovery process has been expanded.

The Indian voters also appointed Varun Chakaravarthy in the last team where the spinner replaced Yashasvi Jaiswal, who was part of the initial team. Varun recently impressed in the T20i series against England and was also a last minute included for the subsequent ODDs. With 14 wickets in the Five-Match T20i series, Varun was the top wicket taker. He debuted in ODI in the second game against England and ended with numbers of 1-54.

Rana is also a newcomer in the international circuit after debuting in November 2024 under the Border-Gavaskar series. He has played two tests, two ODIs and one T20i to date, and is the first Indian to pose three wickets in each of his tests, T20i and ODI debuts.

Meanwhile, Jaiswal is now one of the non-traveling replacements with Mohammed Siraj and Shivam Dube, and the three players travel to Dubai when needed.

India, which is in Group A, begins their Champions Trophy campaign against Bangladesh on February 20th. Their next match is against Pakistan on February 23rd while locking horns against New Zealand in their last group game on March 2nd, with all three three games played in Dubai.

India Hold: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill (Deputy Captain), Virat Kohli, Shreyas, Kl Rahul (WK), Rishabh Pant (WK), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, KoldeDEAV, HARSHIT RANA, MOHD. Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, Varun Chakaravarthy