Aakash Chopra picks India’s strengths ahead of 2025 Champions Trophy, says venue’s familiarity will be an advantage

Former Indian Test opener Aakash Chopra has opined that India’s familiarity of playing in Dubai will give them an advantage over other teams in the upcoming Champions Trophy. The Men in Blue will play all their matches in Dubai whereas the other teams will play at different venues throughout the tournament.

Indian players have been training in Dubai and they will look to hit the ground running. India recently whitewashed England by 3-0 while playing in their own conditions and they would be confident of ticking the right boxes in the eight-team tournament.

“Only we know about Dubai, the opposing team has no idea. This thing was about Pakistan as they are playing in home conditions. So whoever goes there, won’t know the pitches that well. Similarly, everyone will have to come to Dubai,” Aakash Chopra said on his YouTube Channel.

The reputed commentator noted that India will have a good chance to acclimatize to the Dubai conditions.

“We are the only ones who will play three matches on the same ground and the same square, and that has to be our strength. We will also practice in identical conditions. There is a week’s gap after the second match. So we will get to know the conditions a little better,” he observed.

Chopra highlighted that India’s experienced batting line-up will be their strength in the upcoming ICC event.

“The pedigree, experience and depth in our batting. From whichever point of view you might see, you will find that India’s batting is powerful. If we just do man-to-man marking and go with the pedigree, India have the strongest batting in this tournament. No team looks close,” he said.

The renowned commentator said India has a lot of batting depth as they have batting till number eight.

“Just think about it – Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, then there is Rishabh Pant’s possibility, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel is batting brilliantly these days, and you have batting till Ravindra Jadeja. Jaddu comes at No. 8,” Chopra observed.

India will begin their Champions Trophy campaign against Bangladesh in Dubai on February 20.