Why is Harshit Rana not playing Champions Trophy 2025 Match between India vs New Zealand?

India and New Zealand will play the last group-stage match of 2025 Champions Trophy at the Dubai International Stadium on March 2. Both the teams have been unbeaten in the tournament so far and this will be a battle to take the top spot in the group. 

The last time these two teams faced in an ICC tournament was the ICC ODI World Cup 2023 where the two sides played a high-scoring semi-final at the Wankhede Stadium. The winner of March 2 clash will face Australia while the loser will be up against South Africa.

Toss Update

New Zealand won the toss and decided to bowl first. They brought in Daryl Mitchell in place of Devon Conway. On the other hand the Indian team also made an interesting change by bringing in Varun Chakravarthy in place of Harshit Rana.

Varun Chakarvarthy joins in place of Harshit Rana

Rohit Sharma confirmed that the team has decided to rest Harshit Rana replaced the pacer with mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy, who will be making his debut in a 50-over ICC event. The Indian team will go into the match with four spin options in the form of Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja and Chakravarthy.

What did the captains say at the toss?

Rohit Sharma (India)

Was anyway looking to bat first, wanted to see what we could do upfront and then challenge our bowlers since we chased on both games. Approach will be very similar to the previous games, just trying to do the same things. One change for us - Harshit has been rested, Varun is playing for us. It is all about bowling in partnerships, in both games we have combined to pick 19 wickets. Our spinners have restricted them well and then the seamers have got the wickets.

Mitchell Santner (New Zealand)

We'll have a bowl first, looks like a good wicket. Want to put some pressure early and hopefully it skids on well later. We still want to win, we know we are going to be in Lahore later but first task is to do a job here, and challenge ourselves in different conditions. Daryl Mitchell comes in, Conway misses this one.

IND vs NZ Playing 11: 

India:

Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy.

New Zealand:

Will Young, Rachin Ravindra, Kane Williamson, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham (wk), Glenn Phillips, Michael Bracewell, Mitchell Santner (c), Matt Henry, Kyle Jamieson, William ORourke.