Gautam Gambhir made Team India win the Champions Trophy, he stunned everyone with these 5 moves.

Team India has won the Champions Trophy title after 12 years. Now by winning it for the third time, the Indian team has also become the most successful team in this tournament. Team India has won this trophy without losing in the entire tournament. The team's head coach Gautam Gambhir has a big contribution to this success. He made 5 big moves during the tournament, in front of which all the teams were defeated. Due to these important decisions of his, India became the champion of the tournament. Let's know about these 5 decisions of Gambhir.

Bringing Axar Patel to number 5

Axar Patel usually bats in the lower order in ODI cricket, but Gautam Gambhir changed his batting position to number 5 in this tournament. Gambhir was criticized a lot for this, but in the end, this decision proved to be a masterstroke. This brought balance to Team India's batting lineup. Along with this, there was depth in batting. Axar filled the gap of a left-handed batsman in the middle order and acted like a trump card. He played short but effective innings in almost every match.

KL Rahul was made the finisher.

KL Rahul was playing at number 5 earlier. He used to handle the team in the middle overs. But Gambhir gave this responsibility to Akshar and asked Rahul to play the role of finisher. There was a lot of uproar over this decision of his, but it proved to be game changing in the tournament. The tension in the dressing room also reduced with Rahul coming down. Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma also agreed to this. In the very first match, Rahul scored an unbeaten 41 runs and made the team win the match. Then in the semi-finals also he scored an unbeaten 42 runs and in the final, he made the team victorious by scoring an unbeaten 34 runs in 33 balls.

Varun Chakraborty entered at the last moment.

Initially, 4 spinners were included in the Champions Trophy squad. But Gautam Gambhir removed Yashasvi Jaiswal at the last moment and got Varun Chakravarthy included. Everyone was against the decision of Gambhir. Questions were raised about keeping more than 5 spinners in the team. But in the group stage against New Zealand, then in the semi-finals and the final, Varun Chakravarthy proved to be the X factor. It had become difficult for every batsman to read him.

The result was that during the group stage, he took 5 wickets against New Zealand and 2 important wickets including Travis Head in the semi-finals. In the final, when the Indian team was desperate for the first wicket, Varun came and dismissed Will Young and broke the partnership. After this, he also dismissed Glenn Phillips who was batting explosively. In this way, in the title match, Varun took 2 wickets for 45 runs in 10 overs. Not only this, by taking 9 wickets in just 3 matches, he was also the second highest wicket taker in the entire tournament.

4 spinners net

Usually in ODIs, any team plays 2 spinners. Sometimes 3 spinners are also seen when the pitch is more helpful. But looking at the pitch and conditions of Dubai, Gambhir decided to field 4 out of his 5 spinners in the second half of the tournament, which benefited India. All these spinners became match winners. It had become difficult to score runs against them. Thanks to their 40 overs in every match, Team India defeated the opposing team.

Bringing Harshit Rana into the team

Just before the Champions Trophy, Jasprit Bumrah was out of the squad due to injury. After this, Gambhir, seeing the opportunity, first included Harshit Rana in the squad. Then gave him a place in the playing eleven. Experts had raised questions on the selection of Harshit. Due to lack of experience, everyone believed that Mohammad Siraj should have been selected in his place.

When Harshit was selected in the team, there was a debate about playing left-handed Arshdeep Singh in his place, because he had shown his talent in the T20 World Cup 2024. But Gambhir did not listen to anyone and gave preference to Harshit Rana. Harshit played two matches and performed brilliantly in both. He took wickets for the team on important occasions.