Champions Trophy: Team India grapple with sweet selection headache ahead of semifinal vs Australia

Men-in-Blue faced with happy selection conundrum after Varun Chakravarthy's heroics vs New Zealand

- STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE

India captain Rohit Sharma has confirmed selectors will be making match-up-dependent decisions for their ICC Champions Trophy 2025 semi-final against Australia on Wednesday.

India probably wasn't expecting their right-arm leg-spinner Varun Chakravarthy to be so productive against New Zealand.

While already 33 years old, he was playing in just his second ODI and stunningly produced a maiden five-wicket-haul, taking 5/42 off 10 overs.

Chakravarthy came into the team for Harshit Rana, as the only change from the side that beat Pakistan, giving India yet another slow bowling option on a Dubai pitch that's been fruitful for spinners throughout the tournament.

And he'll now be very hard to leave out of India's XI for their knockout semi-final against Australia, at the same venue.

"We just wanted to try and see what (Chakravarthy) can offer," Rohit said post-game.

"He's got something different about him, there's no doubt about it.

Varun was class today.

If he gets it right, it's very difficult to read him.

We've got to think about what we want to do in the next game (against Australia), obviously (the selection dilemma) is a good headache to have."

New Zealander Matt Henry echoed Rohit's sentiments on Chakravarthy, crediting the variation that the Black Caps batters were made to try and deal with.

"He bowled beautifully, didn't he?" Henry said after their loss to India.