ICC Champions Trophy 2025: Why Rachin Ravindra isn't included in New Zealand playing 11 for PAK vs NZ clash

Devon Conway opened in place of Rachin Ravindra against Pakistan.

The ICC Champions Trophy 2025 got underway on Wednesday at the National Stadium in Karachi with hosts Pakistan taking on New Zealand.

Both these teams had met recently at the same venue five days ago in the final of the tri-series. There, the Kiwis beat Pakistan by five wickets in a low-scoring thriller.

For their Champions Trophy encounter, both teams made one change to their teams that featured in the tri-series final.

Haris Rauf, who missed the final due to an injury, returned to the playing XI, replacing Faheem Ashraf. New Zealand brought back Matt Henry in their playing XI, replacing Jacob Duffy.

New Zealand’s XI against Pakistan was bereft of their opener Rachin Ravindra.

Why Rachin Ravindra isn’t included in New Zealand playing 11 for PAK vs NZ clash?

Rachin hasn’t completely recovered from the nasty head injury he had sustained during the tri-series match against Pakistan on February 8.

Rachin had missed a straightforward catch of Khushdil Shah as he lost the sight of the ball in the lights and the ball hit him on his forehead. He was rushed away from the ground immediately. Fortunately, there is no damage to his eyes and there hasn’t been a reported concussion yet.

While the left-hander had trained on Tuesday, he wasn’t fully fit to play on Wednesday.

Tom Latham said on Tuesday, “His recovery’s going good, but just need to make sure since it was a pretty nasty injury. When it’s a head injury you just need to make sure things are all right, so just going through the protocols he needs to go through and we’ll wait and see.”

Devon Conway opened in the absence of Rachin in the rest of the tri-series, and also in their Champions Trophy clash against Pakistan.

Teams:

New Zealand (Playing XI): Devon Conway, Will Young, Kane Williamson, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham(w), Glenn Phillips, Michael Bracewell, Mitchell Santner(c), Nathan Smith, Matt Henry, William O’Rourke

Pakistan (Playing XI): Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Rizwan(w/c), Salman Agha, Tayyab Tahir, Khushdil Shah, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf, Abrar Ahmed

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