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Cricket Players'Now down to rest to try and catch up': India deemed 'best white ball team in the world' after Champions Trophy win
Michael Vaughan credited India for a terrific period in white ball cricket over the last few months, and laid down the challenge to other teams to catch up.
After dominating the ICC Champions Trophy from the very beginning of their campaign, India sealed a win in the final by 4 wickets, to lift their first ODI trophy since 2013. India were pencilled in as the favourites due to the all-round quality in the team, and lived up to those expectations by hanging on and ensuring they finally produced a trophy to back up their performances.
This was also held up by former England captain Michael Vaughan, who is known for being quite critical of the Indian team. On this occasion, however, he was full of compliments for the white-ball unit following their success in Dubai today.
Writing on X, Vaughan posted: “Let’s be honest India are the best team in the world in white ball cricket by a decent margin ... Thoroughly deserved to Win .. T20 holders/Champions trophy holders .. Now down to rest to try and catch up.”
India have enjoyed unprecedented success in ICC events over the last 18 months, winning 10 matches in the ODI World Cup before falling short in the final, before going on to lift the T20 World Cup last year in Barbados, and now adding on to it with a Champions Trophy victory to boot.
In total, India have won 22 of their last 23 matches across ICC competitions, and coming away with two trophies as well as runners-up medals. Their success has seen them established as the premier white ball team in the world, and Rohit Sharma’s captaincy has seen the team achieve great heights in recent years.
Who can match up to India's dominance?
Vaughan also laid down the gauntlet for the remainder of the teams to try and reach that standard, but India’s victories have also arrived in a largely comfortable and undramatic fashion over the years, with the balance of their team and their batting depth setting them apart from the chasing pack. However, victories such as Australia’s in Ahmedabad, and South Africa pushing them to the end in Barbados, have displayed that there is still a slight vulnerability within the unit.
India’s win against New Zealand was achieved to a star bowling performance by Varun Chakravarthy and Kuldeep Yadav. However, it was a man-of-the-match batting performance by captain Rohit (76) that gave the chase impetus, before Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul ensured there weren’t too many hiccups as they hauled down the target of 253.
