"We have picked only two spinners, other three are all-rounders": Rohit Sharma

For the Champions Trophy 2025 Team India has reached Dubai with five spinners and that has attracted plenty of attention Team India skipper Rohit Sharma has defended the call by saying that three of them are allrounders who add value to his sideVarun Chakravarthy and Kuldeep Yadav are the two specialist spinners and other options in the spin department are Ravindra Jadeja Axar Patel and Washington SundarIn the Champions Trophy 2025 Team India has also travelled with three pacers namely Mohammed Shami Arshdeep Singh and Harshit Rana Additionally Hardik Pandya has been a premier pace allrounder for the side over the yearsThere are two spinners and the other three are allrounders so I am not looking at them as five spinners those three guys can bat and can bowl alsoIn the rest of the teams the fast bowlers are allrounders 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 spinheavy composition of the sideIn the Champions Trophy 2025 Jasprit Bumrahs absence will put additional responsibility on Shami who is yet to regain his formIndia prefers to bat deep and that explains the presence of three spin allrounders in the sideAlso ReadVirat Kohli will score heavily this year and hes going to start from here UthappaJadeja 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 skillDubai 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 ThursdayBe it batting or bowling the Rohit Sharmaled side is ready to tackle any problemsWe 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 doSo I think its about all 78 batters chipping in whether you get big score or not but all 78 batters need to contributeI 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 focusChakravarthy was a lastminute addition to the squad with opener Yashasvi Jaiswal making way for the mystery spinner Chakravarthy has got the opportunity following a stellar season in the T20 formatWhen asked about the spinners inclusion Rohit Sharma said Chakravarthy was picked for a reasonHe doesnt throw many variations in the net He throws the ball in the same way Maybe he doesnt even want to show us what he has laughs But that is a good thing He has got a certain weapon that he wants to put out there when it actually matters I am more than happy if he wants to do that But he has got something different which is why he is here with us Whatever we have seen of him in the last 89 months it has been very impressiveBoth Mohammed Shami and Kuldeep Yadav have not played a lot of international cricket due to injuries They are back in the side but are yet to hit their strides In Bumrahs absence expectations have increased from Shami who was the best bowler for India in the 2023 ODI World CupThey both are fine when it comes to bowling fitness Shami has played only two ODIs and obviously a couple of T20s as well All we wanted with Shami was to get back wearing the Indian colours more than anything elseWhether he gets wickets or not that was completely immaterial for us at that point We wanted him to get back to playing for India and he has done that Whatever I have seen of him so far he looks absolutely fine When you talk about a bowler like Shami who has done the job over the years so many times for us for them it is just about getting back to their rhythm and hopefully we can find some rhythm early on in this tournament and help the teamOn Kuldeep Rohit Sharma said Kuldeep again very similar was injured had a hernia operation just after the New Zealand series and was out of action for two and a half months For him also it was important to get back playing and get back into that rhythm The two games that he played the numbers will not show and with certain players you dont have to look at numbers so much and in detailFor certain players it is just about getting back to playing If these two guys are in form the team looks very goodWith PTI Inputs