When India plays against New Zealand in the Champions Trophy final on Sunday, fans will hope that Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli lead the team to victory. Many also wonder if this will be their last match for India.
Table of Contents
Recent events at the practice sessions suggest something important is happening. On Friday, Rohit and Kohli spoke privately for 15 minutes before Rohit joined head coach Gautam Gambhir and chief selector Ajit Agarkar for further discussions. On Saturday, the three had another long conversation on the pitch. This has sparked speculation about their future. Shubman Gill, instead of Rohit or the coach, attended the pre-final press conference. This hints that Rohit may be avoiding questions about his future.
Now, focusing on the match, India has a tough challenge against New Zealand. The Kiwis have beaten India in three out of four ICC knockout matches. India will likely stick with the same spin-heavy team, featuring Varun Chakravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, and Axar Patel, as the slow Dubai pitch could favour them. New Zealand, however, has skilled spin players like Kane Williamson and Rachin Ravindra, along with spinners Mitchell Santner and Michael Bracewell.
If this is Rohit and Kohli’s last ICC final, they would want to leave with a trophy. Rohit needs a big score to relieve pressure on the middle order, while Gill, Iyer, Rahul, and Hardik Pandya must contribute well.
With high emotions and history at stake, this final promises to be a thrilling contest. The commentators and umpires are bound to play an important role in this match between India and New Zealand. The decisions of umpires are going to be very significant and can impact the game heavily. In the semi final between India and Pakistan, Richard Illingworth appeared to be much more stringent towards India, according to the Indian fans. ICC has revealed the list of umpires and Richard Illingworth is again set to play the role of an on-field umpire in today’s match. The commentators for the match are already announced. Let’s cover them all.
IND vs NZ, Final- List of Commentators for Today Match, CT 2025
English Commentators– Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar, Ian Ward, Simon Doull, Katey Martin, Ian Bishop, Bazid Khan, Dinesh Karthik and Waqar Younis
Hindi Commentators– Deep Dasgupta, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh, Sanjay Manjrekar, Ambati Rayudu, Robin Uthappa, Mohammad Kaif, Piyush Chawla, Sanjay Bangar and Aakash Chopra
Tamil Commentators– Sadagopan Ramesh, Aniruda Srikkanth, Abhinav Mukund, K Srikkanth, Muthuraman, K V Sathyanarayanan, Murali Vijay, Yomahesh Vijayakumar and S Badrinath
Telugu Commentators– Akshath Reddy, Hanuma Vihari, R Sridhar, MSK Prasad, Ashish Reddy, NC Kaushik, and Kalyan Krishna
Kannada Commentators– Srinivasa Murthy, Venkatesh Prasad, J Suchith, Sunil Joshi, Vijay Bharadwaj, Pavan Deshpande and Akhil Balachandra
Bhojpuri Commentators– Satyaprakash K, Saurabh Kumar, Gulam Husain, Sumit Mishra and Ashutosh Aman
Haryanvi Commentators– Sumit Narwal, Manvinder Bisla, Anil Chaudhary, Vishwaas, Krishan Sharma and Sonu Sharma
Marathi Commentators– Aditya Tare, Kedar Jadhav and Chaitanya Sant
IND vs NZ, Final- List of Umpires for Today Match, CT 2025
| Role | Country | Name |
|---|---|---|
| On-field Umpire 1 | Australia | Paul Reiffel |
| On-field Umpire 2 | England | Richard Illingworth |
| TV Umpire | West Indies | Joel Wilson |
| Reserve Umpire | Sri Lanka | Kumar Dharmasena |
| Match Referee | Sri Lanka | Ranjan Madugalle |
Both Paul Reiffel and Richard Illingworth are veteran umpires. Reiffel has worked as on on-field umpire in 94 ODIs, while Illingworth has acted an on-field umpire in 98 ODIs. Joel Wilson is also heavily experienced with over 40 matches as TV umpire.
IND vs NZ- Champions Trophy 2025 Final Squads
India– Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, Washington Sundar, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Rishabh Pant (wk)
New Zealand– Will Young, Rachin Ravindra, Kane Williamson, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham (wk), Glenn Phillips, Michael Bracewell, Mitchell Santner (c), Matt Henry, Kyle Jamieson, William ORourke, Nathan Smith, Mark Chapman, Devon Conway (wk), Jacob Duffy
