Champions Trophy 2025 India vs Semi-final Teams Best Playing 11
Rohit Sharma and Kane Williamson head-to-head in our Team India vs the three semi-final teams best playing 11 for the Champions Trophy (CT) 2025.
10 days into an ICC tournament, and we are almost ready with the semi-finalists at the ICC Champions Trophy 2025. While India and New Zealand have qualified from Group A, Australia has qualified Group B, and South Africa are 99.99% in, unless a miracle happens, and South Africa play their worst match ever. While these four teams have qualified, those who finish at the top of the table will be known in the last two group-stage matches.
Overall, if you look at the matches, India have played the best cricket so far in the competition. They were already strong on paper, and the first two group-stage matches confirmed their domination. While India has been the strongest in Group A, the teams from Group B had to stretch it out in all matches to make it to the semi-finals. But ignoring the team performance for the time being, we actually have some of the best players in the world who will grace the semi-finals.
But what would happen if Team India, the strongest team in the world bid against the champion players from the other three semi-final teams at the Champions Trophy 2025? It will make up for an interesting comparison, so let’s analyze the squad of all four teams, and do a detailed man-to-man comparison of the strongest playing 11 for Team India vs the other three champion semi-final teams’ players for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.
Champions Trophy 2025 Team India vs Semi-final Teams Best Playing 11
Starting with openers, we have the world’s two best openers, Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma for Team India, and they are up against a belligerent Travis Head, and a consistent Rassie van der Dussen. Rohit and Gill have been phenomenal ODI batters, and are also in the top 3 World’s best ODI batters currently. In comparison, Head is one of the best in the business, but the ROS team lacks a quality second opener, and will have to rely on Rassie for the second opener slot. However, Rassie is a quality batter, and has been in stunning form off-late.
Coming to the middle-order, we have a stable middle-order for Team India with the likes of Virat Kohli at 3, Shreyas Iyer at 4, and KL Rahul at 5. Whereas for Team ROS, we have Kane Williamson at 3, Daryl Mitchell at 4, and Heinrich Klaasen at 5. Both teams have the right mix of attacking and defensive players. While Kohli and KL Rahul can consolidate when required, Shreyas Iyer in general plays attacking cricket. Similarly, Kane and Daryl can consolidate when required, and Klaasen generally plays the attacking brand of cricket.
Coming to all-rounders, Team India has Hardik Pandya as the pace all-rounder, and Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel as the spin all-rounders. Whereas the Rest of the Semi-finalists Team has Marco Jansen as the pace all-rounder, and Mitchell Santner and Glenn Maxwell as the spin all-rounder. Again, there is very little to differentiate here as both teams have a solid batting all-rounder, and two solid bowling all-rounders.
Bowling lineup – India vs ROS Team
Finally, talking about pure bowlers, Team India will be missing Jasprit Bumrah big time. Whereas the ROS team will be missing Mitchell Starc big time. In the absence of these two quality bowlers, India will have to rely on the pace of Mohammed Shami and Harshit Rana, and the spin of Kuldeep. Whereas ROS will have to rely on the pace of Matt Henry and Kagiso Rabada, and the spin of Adam Zampa.
On paper, the ROS team clearly has a stronger bowling unit if we add Marco Jansen and Mitchell Santner to it. Whereas for Team India, Hardik and Ravindra Jadeja are decent bowlers, but marginally fall short of Marco Jansen and Mitchell Santner. But if we add the sixth bowler, Axar Patel adds more value as compared to Glenn Maxwell. However, the Indian bowling unit still lacks the punch as compared to the ROS team.
Champions Trophy 2025 Team India Best Playing 11
Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Shami & Kuldeep Yadav.
Champions Trophy 2025 Rest of the Semi-final Teams Best Playing 11
Travis Head, Rassie van der Dussen, Kane Williamson, Daryl Mitchell, Heinrich Klaasen, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Santner, Marco Jansen, Matt Henry, Kagiso Rabada & Adam Zampa.
So, that’s about the India vs Rest of Semi-final teams’ best playing 11 for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025. Overall, if we compare, India’s batting is world-class, and can beat any team in the world. Having someone like Ravindra Jadeja at 8 is a fantastic thing. However, the bowling unit of the Indian team lacks punch compared to the ROS team. If these two teams bid against each other, India might excel on slow-and-low pitches. Whereas the ROS team may excel on flat pitches.
Adesh Kothari is the founder of AK4Tsay1 Cricalytics with over 20 years of experience following Cricket.
Cricket to him is like what Football is to Lionel Messi, Singing is to Lata Mangeshkar, Dancing is to Michael Jackson, and Acting is to Clint Eastwood.
Besides his effervescent love for Cricket, Adesh is an MBA by qualification.
