The prestigious ICC Champions Trophy is set to begin on 19th February with the hosts Pakistan taking on New Zealand in Karachi. However due to political reasons, India will be playing all of its matches in Dubai. The tournament comprises of eight teams divided into two different groups. Group A includes India, Pakistan, New Zealand and Bangladesh while Group B has Australia, England, South Africa and Afghanistan. The 2nd match of the tournament is India vs Bangladesh, hence let's have a look at India's expected playing XI. Top order locked in India's top three are undoubtedly confirmed all threeof them have been doing great wonders in ODI cricket. Skipper Rohit Sharma will be opening the batting alongside the newly appointed vice-captain Shubman Gill while Virat Kohli will continue to sit at his throne of no. 3. All of them seemed to have regained their form in the series against England with Gill being magnificent. Rohit, Gill and Kohli average 49.05, 60.16 and 57.94 respectively in ODIs. Dependable middle order India's no. 4 and 5 also have been tremendous in one day cricket recently. Both Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul played an enormous role in the 2023 World Cup campaign, scoring 530 and 452 runs respectively. Recently in the series against England, Iyer looked sublime as he scored 181 runs at an avg. of 60.33 while Rahul also got himself among the runs in the final match. With the team management giving a chance to Rahul in all 3 matches of that series, it is quite clear that the team management would prefer him over Rishabh Pant. View this post on Instagram A post shared by CricketGully (@cricketgullyofficial) Plenty of all-rounders India have selected 4 proper all rounders and 5 quality spinners in their squad. With Jasprit Bumrah ruled out, Md. Shami coming back after an injury and Md. Siraj not selected, India's pace department looks to lacking that much required depth and experience. Therefore India might be looking to play three spinners and rely more on their experience. Hardik Pandya has been an absolutely gun player when it comes to crunch situations and makes a clear cut to the final 11. Ravindra Jadeja will also automatically find himself in the team as he's been an integral part of the squad for more than a decade now. One thing would be to choose between Axar Patel and Washington Sundar but is should be quite easy to prefer Axar as he has been amazing with the bat up the order. He has been given a long rope lately and played a huge part in India's 2024 T20 WC win as well. Also read: How costly would Bumrah's absence be for India in the Champions Trophy Picking the frontline bowlers The team management will need to choose between Kuldeep Yadav and Varun Chakravarthy. They might be tempted to play Varun because of his recent heroics in T20Is but there are higher chances of them going with Kuldeep as he is vastly experienced and has been a genuine wicket-taker for India for a long time now. Md. Shami will be the frontline seamer of the team who will look to repeat his incredible performance of the 2023 World Cup. The second seamer would be either Harshit Rana or Arshdeep Singh, but both of them aren't much experienced in ODIs. It might be more sensible to go along with Arshdeep in the beginning as he was the joint highest wicket-taker of the T20 World Cup last year while Harshit Rana was a bit costly in all of his first spells in the England ODI series. India's expected playing XI Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill (vc), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Axar Patel, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Md. Shami, Arshdeep Singh subs: Rishabh Pant (wk), Washington Sundar, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana