ICC Champions Trophy 2025 winners Team India will go into a break from international cricket as the players disperse to their respective franchises for the IPL 2025. After the IPL 2025 gets over in May, the Indian team will begin their next WTC 2027 cycle with a five-Test series in England.
Former batter and commentator Navjot Singh Sidhu stated that India should begin training for the tour as soon as possible, particularly given the team's recent troubles in red-ball cricket.
India lost their last two Test series- 0-3 to New Zealand at home and 1-3 to Australia in the BGT 2024-25, which eliminated them from the race forthe WTC 2025 final.
“The thing to be worried about is that the IPL is now coming up next. No one is ready to sit out the IPL. They will play the league and then all of a sudden comes the England tour. Conditions will shift from the North Pole to the South Pole. Completely different. Moreover, India's last Test series in England had started on August 4. This time, it is ending on August 2.
The matches are in June and July. There will be grass and moisture and the air will be so heavy that the ball will gain ample movement. And then it will move more off the seam. England are sitting ready at home in their conditions and they are like wounded tigers. They have been beaten and defeated,” Sidhu told Sports Tak.
Sidhu said one of India's biggest challenges will be to fill the gap of all-rounders Hardik Pandya and Axar Patel in the Test XI.
“India's biggest problem is that in the middle order, there are no all-rounders the way you see in white ball cricket. Is there a Ravindra Jadeja, or Hardik Pandya or Axar Patel? There is only Jadeja among these three and even he will be limited there. Will he take 4-5 wickets in an innings there? No,” said Sidhu.
According to the former batter, India must decide on their bowling lineup while maintaining batting depth.
“For that you have to depend on someone like Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, maybe Arshdeep Singh. You will have to bring a mystery spinner with all of them, that is England's weakness. But India won't expose Varun Chakravarthy. Or else they will play Kuldeep. So, if these are your four bowlers, none of them bat. Then there is the problem of how to strengthen the batting order. These are the questions standing in front of India,” he said.
