Former Indian cricketer Suresh Raina selected his team for the upcoming Champions Trophy 2025 and decided to keep experienced players KL Rahul and Mohammed Shami on the bench. Raina shared it on Star Sports.

Raina said that Rahul was not effective in the ODIs played recently against England. Rahul was sent to number 6 in the first two matches, but he scored just 12 runs. In the third match, he was promoted to number 5, but he scored 40 runs off 29 balls. Mohammed Shami also played two ODIs in this tour, but his performance was average. Shami took two wickets, but his average was 52 and economy rate was 6.57.

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Although Shami returned after recovering from injury and experts believe that more match practice can bring back his rhythm, Raina did not give him a place in his team. Raina also left out Washington Sundar and Varun Chakraborty.

Raina has included Rohit Sharma (captain), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (wicketkeeper), Axar Patel, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana and Kuldeep Yadav in his predicted playing XI. Regarding Kuldeep Yadav, Raina said that his mystery spin can be important against opponents like Pakistan and New Zealand, which can help him get wickets in matches.