Champions Trophy final: India’s big chance to end ICC trophy drought

After winning four out four games here in Dubai, without having to travel outside of the unofficial capital of the world to play anybody, surely the Indian cricket team cannot fall at the final hurdle in the final of the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy? 

Well, common sense and form would suggest the answer is ‘no’ but this is cricket, and in India’s way are the Black Caps, who have won the only two ICC finals held between these two nations. First, the final of the 2000 version of this very competition, back then known as the ICC Knockout, and then in 2021 when Kane Williamson’s team lifted the inaugural World Test Championship mace at Southampton. 

So no, failing at the last hurdle is a distinct possibility for Rohit Sharma’s team. And we can expect New Zealand, having lost their only match of the Champions Trophy to India in Dubai, to come back harder and with better planning than last Sunday. 

And yet, looking at how India have virtually patented the ODI format and how well their spinners have done on the various Dubai tracks used so far, there really is no reason for Rohit to become the third Indian cricket captain after Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni to lift the ICC Champions Trophy. 

Which, is this happens on March 9, will seal Rohit’s legacy as a white-ball captain. Rohit’s team ended a 17-year wait for the T20 World Cup last year in Barbados, and he promptly retired from the T20I format. On the cusp of turning 38, Rohit looks unlikely to be around as an ODI player in two and a half years when the 2027 World Cup is held in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia and so Sunday’s final against the Black Caps in Dubai could be the crowning glory of his 50-over leadership. 

The World Cup this is not, but given the paucity of ODI trophies in Indian cricket’s cabinet it will matter a lot. Fans will recount the unbridled joy they experienced when Dhoni’s team lifted the ODI World Cup in 2011 to end 28 years of pain, heartbreak and despair. Hardly two years later, Dhoni and his now slightly different and much younger-looking team – no Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and Gautam Gambhir now – looked to have blown their chances of winning the Champions Trophy in London after scoring 129/7 from a rain-reduced 20 overs-per-side affair, but they miraculously defeated hosts England to win that title as well. 

Winning the only two ICC 50-over competitions in existence in 2011 and 2013 cemented Dhoni’s legacy as a white-ball colossus. And even though it speaks volumes of Indian cricket’s success and stability that they have had just three ODI captains in 17 years, the fact remains that since that Champions Trophy win over England in 2013, no Indian team has won an ICC ODI title. 

The 2015 and 2019 World Cups ended at the semi-final stage, the 2023 campaign came to a screeching haul in the final and India lost the last Champions Trophy final to Pakistan when it was previously held in 2017. 

Such gaps without 50-over trophies can become folk tales, apart from inking thick red-lettered asterixis behind superstars’ names. And no team embodies that more than India given their status in global cricket, the jaw-dropping success of so many of their players and the cricketing talent the country has. 

Thus, Sunday’s final here in Dubai against New Zealand stands as the best chance this Indian team has at ending 12 years without an ICC 50-over trophy. They have the players, the confidence and the experience of conditions to win the tournament. New Zealand own the edge in terms of ICC events and particularly in head-to-head finals, but this Indian team under Rohit has what it takes to rewrite the story. 

There’s always next time, fans of the Indian cricket team used to tell each other after experiencing sorrow at World Cups and Champions Trophies over the years. A team with a streaky 50-over finals history at ICC events owes it to their fans to ease the pain and end the wait. Now is the time.