Why are Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy not playing vs Oman in Asia Cup 2025?

India have offered a break to star spinner Varun Chakravarthy for the match against Oman in the ongoing Asia Cup 2025. The surface at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi hasn’t been as favourable to the spinners as it was in Dubai, and hence, the team management decided to bring in a pacer in Harshit Rana. Notably, Chakravarthy had clinched two wickets so far in the continental cup.

India have also handed a break to ace pacer Jasprit Bumrah in the match. Since the match didn’t have any significant value, given that the Suryakumar Yadav-led side has already qualified for the Super 4s, Bumrah was handed a break. Arshdeep Singh, who is the leading wicket-taker for India in T20I cricket history, was brought back into the playing XI.

India win toss and elect to bat

India have won the toss and elected to bat first in Abu Dhabi. After winning the toss, Suryakumar cited that they have bowled first against the UAE and Pakistan and hence, wanted to bat first to keep themselves prepared for any sort of situation in the Super 4s of the tournament.

“We are looking to bat first. We have not batted first in this competition and we want to know our depth. Having game time is important going into the Super 4s. We want to continue the good habits we are doing in the first two games and want to continue to do that. It is looking nice and our openers will assess it further,” Suryakumar said after the toss.

Playing XI of India and Oman

India (Playing XI): Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill, Sanju Samson(w), Suryakumar Yadav(c), Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav

Oman (Playing XI): Aamir Kaleem, Jatinder Singh(c), Hammad Mirza, Vinayak Shukla(w), Shah Faisal, Zikria Islam, Aryan Bisht, Mohammad Nadeem, Shakeel Ahmed, Samay Shrivastava, Jiten Ramanandi