Washington Sundar is set to play in India's Champions Trophy 2025 opener against Bangladesh in Dubai on Thursday as India are likely to drop either Ravindra Jadeja or Axar Patel. As per visuals aired on Star Sports on the eve of the match, it appears that the axe will fall on Jadeja. India head coach Gautam Gambhir was seen having an animated chat with Jadeja, which Star Sports experts Abhinav Mukund, Piyush Chawla and Mike Hesson felt had a lot to do with Gambhir informing Jadeja that he was not going to be a part of India's XI against Bangladesh. At the same time, India captain Rohit Sharma talked to Axar Patel.

India have gone in with two specialist spinners and three spin-bowling all-rounders in the Champions Trophy. Jadeja and Axar, cricketers with identical skill sets, played in the first two matches against England in the bilateral series, but India is unlikely to go in with the same combination against Bangladesh, a side which has a lot of left-handers in their top seven. In fact, Bangladesh's top three - openers Tanzid Hasan and Soumya Sarkar and captain Najmul Hossain Shanto are left-handers.

"There are a lot of left-handers in the Bangladesh playing XI. But these two cricketers have done really well for India. But I think in the first game, they should have gone in with Jadeja and Axar because Kuldeep can take the ball away from the left-handers," said former India leg-spinner Piyush Chawla.

Former New Zealand and Royal Challengers Bengaluru head coach Mike Hesson analysed Gambhir's body language further and said he was telling Jadeja that he has made up his mind of picking Washington Sundar ahead of him in the XI.

"He's (Jadeja) not playing," said Hesson when asked to share his thoughts on visuals of Gambhir talking to Jadeja, where the visual ended with the coach tapping on the all-rounder's shoulders. "You can tell from the body language that he's being told he's not playing. (Gambhir is saying), 'That's my decision. I've made it. You may not agree with it but thank you very much. You may go on to play the next one but for the first match, we're playing the off-spinner," Hesson added.

Why Jadeja is being dropped?

Ravindra Jadeja, who has already retired from T20 Internationals, has been a crucial member of the Indian One Day International (ODI) team for the past twelve years. Axar Patel has served as his understudy for a significant duration. Notably, Axar was overlooked for a position in India's ODI World Cup squad when the management made a last-minute decision to include Ravichandran Ashwin. Nevertheless, Axar has demonstrated considerable growth in all facets of the game and has emerged as India's leading left-arm spin-bowling all-rounder in limited-overs cricket.

Should a decision arise between Axar and Jadeja, it is likely that Axar will be favored over the seasoned player, as seems to be the case for the opening match of the Champions Trophy.

In addition, Washington Sundar is the preferred choice of Gambhir. Alongside Harshit Rana and Nitish Kumar Reddy, Gambhir is reportedly a strong advocate for the Tamil Nadu all-rounder.

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