ICC Champions Trophy 2025: "Bizarre selection.." Fans lash out at Gautam Gambhir for picking Harshit Rana over Arshdeep Singh in IND vs BAN clash

Harshit Rana made his ODI debut against England earlier this month.

The Indian cricket team kicked off their campaign at the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 on Thursday in Dubai when they took on Bangladesh in their Group A encounter.

India are coming on the back off a 3-0 ODI series win over England at home. The series also saw pacer Harshit Rana make his ODI debut.

Against England, Rana picked up six wickets in three ODIs at an average of 24.33 and an economy of 6.95.

Rana was preferred in India’s starting XI in their Champions Trophy encounter against Bangladesh over Arshdeep Singh. This irked the Indian fans who even slammed head coach Gautam Gambhir for “favoritism” towards Rana, whom he worked with at Kolkata Knight Riders in the last Indian Premier League season.

Arshdeep played one match against England and returned with good figures of 2/33. The left-arm seamer from Punjab was part of the provisional 15-man squad and was touted to perform the role that Jasprit Bumrah does with the new ball and the old ball.

Rana’s rise has been steep as he was not part of the provisional squad and was later brought into the squad as Bumrah’s replacement. Now, he is part of India’s XI at the Champions Trophy, with Arshdeep being benched.

This is how fans reacted to Harshit Rana’s selection ahead of Arshdeep for IND vs BAN match:

I don't understand this at all. Shami is a good 1st change. Harshit is also a MO bowler. Why not have Arshdeep instead? Gives you a proper PP and death bowler. Bizarre.

— Manya (@CSKian716) February 20, 2025

How Can Harshit Rana Play Above Arshdeep Singh. What A Stupid Decision. Favouritism At Its Peak. pic.twitter.com/hGyrvp4RUY

— Aufridi Chumtya (@ShuhidAufridi) February 20, 2025

Harshit Rana playing Champions Trophy ahead of Siraj, Arshdeep, or even Mukesh is really surprising and it's not like he has some freaking records. pic.twitter.com/iY9nuQvwKz

— Div🦁 (@div_yumm) February 20, 2025

Everybody who was saying they are just preparing for backups by playing Harshit, please come out. https://t.co/DpfflBKmYu

— Manya (@CSKian716) February 20, 2025

Arshdeep not included in Playing XI while harshit rana is playing 🙂 pic.twitter.com/hwdtn8IIwp

— Sukham 𝕏 (@LionsDenPBKS) February 20, 2025

Regular reminder to the fact that GG bkl didn't debut Harshit in the NZ series so that KKR can retain him as an uncapped player and then goes on to make him play him in BGT and now in CT 👍🏻

— Kraken (@krak3nnnnnn) February 20, 2025

Very surprised that Arshdeep is not starting, India banking on Shami and Harshit again with the new ball?Good luck.

— Nikhil 🏏 (@CricCrazyNIKS) February 20, 2025

harshit over arshdeep WHAT THE FUCK is this bias man??? I really like harshit as a bowler but he’s been fast tracked too much seriously

— cheeku fangirl (@cokeconnoiss3ur) February 20, 2025

Reason you don't know why Harshit Rana preferred over Arshdeep specially against Bangladesh 😁 #ChampionsTrophy pic.twitter.com/wIYOEFtp2q

— Sanket (@BTechComedian) February 20, 2025

Arshdeep Out Harshit Rana In pic.twitter.com/poMYcvqUZ3

— SarcasmHit (@SarcasmHit) February 20, 2025

Not ill-wishing Harshit Rana, I hope he does really well but dropping Arshdeep Singh for him was not right.

— Vipul 🇮🇳 (@Vipul_Espeaks) February 20, 2025

Teams:

Bangladesh (Playing XI): Tanzid Hasan, Soumya Sarkar, Najmul Hossain Shanto(c), Towhid Hridoy, Mushfiqur Rahim(w), Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Jaker Ali, Rishad Hossain, Tanzim Hasan Sakib, Taskin Ahmed, Mustafizur Rahman

India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul(w), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav

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