Former Indian opener Sunil Gavaskar believes that Team India have several areas they could improve despite reaching the 2025 Champions Trophy final. However, India will take on New Zealand in the final in Dubai on Sunday, March 9.

In a conversation with India Today, Gavaskar said: “They haven’t because when you look at the openers, they haven’t really given the Indian team the kind of start that they had hoped for. That has not happened. So, clearly, I think there’s a shortcoming over there. Even with the new ball, you might want to take wicket in the first 10 overs. You definitely want to take about 2 or 3 wickets. That’s also not quite been happening. In the middle overs, we have not got wickets, even though the runs have not been flowing. So those are areas that you get better in those areas, the better the chances of going on and winning the final.”

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Sunil Gavaskar supported team India to go with an unchanged playing XI for the 2025 Champions Trophy final against New Zealand. However, India played their first two matches with an attack including three specialist spinners, two frontline pacers and all-rounder Hardik Pandya as well.

“I think it is going to be 4 spinners. It has to be. Why change now? It’s shown Chakravarthy’s inclusion, Kuldeep’s inclusion has shown how effective they can be. And also, wicket-taking balls are the best dot balls in limited-overs cricket or any format of the game. So they’ve been doing that, so there should be no change at all,” concluded Sunil Gavaskar.