The Champions Trophy 2025 is played today at Dubai and Men In Blue led by Rohit Sharma locked horns with Kiwis captained by Michael Santner. It is known that ever since India started winning the matches comfortably in Dubai, various teams, commentators and former players from other countries talked about India getting undue advantage due to ICC scheduling after India's refusal to travel to Pakistan.
In the midst of all this, Rohit Sharma lost his 15th toss and equalled the record of West Indian legend Brian Lara. New Zealand started of in a sedate manner but never could really take off thanks to the iron like grip weilded by the spinners. New Zealand managed to scramble for 251 /7 in its allotted 50 overs. Among Indian bowlers Varun Chakravarthy and Kuldeep Yadav took two wickets apiece.
Rachin Ravindra threatened to take the match away continuing from the superlative century he scored against South Africa in the semi finals. However his innings was cutshort for Kuldeep Yadav for 37. Daryl Mitchell along with Glen Phillips steadied the Kiwi ship with Mitchell scoring 63 before falling while trying to accelerate the score. Phillips scored 34. It was left to a late surge from bracewell who scored an unbeaten 53 (40) to provide some respectability to New Zealand total.
India started the change confidently with Rohit Sharma decided to take on the bowlers early. Gill played the second fiddle scoring 31 and when everyone thought India was cruising, Glen Phillips took a blinder to send Gill to the pavilion. Then everyone got a huge shock when Bracewell trapped chase master Kohli for just 1 run in front of the wicket.
New Zealand spinners bowled tightly and runs dried up. They had a last laugh when Rachin Ravindra had Rohit Sharma for 76(83). Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel played in a calm and sedate manner and when everything looked going for India, Iyer who had a reprieve couldn't capitalise on it and got out for 48. Axar Patel played an irresponsible shot to get out for 29.
However, ever dependable KL. Rahul along with Hardik Pandya eased the tensions among fans and dressing room by scoring the winning runs. Rahul scored an unbeaten 34(33).
Mitchel Santner and Michael Bracewell scalped two wickets each while Ravindra was economical. Finally, India won the Champions Trophy after 13 years.