Champions Trophy 2017: Rohit, Kedar fail to travel with the team, departure delayed

New Delhi: Team India’s Champions Trophy journey started off with a minor roadblock as two of its mainstays in the batting order, Rohit Sharma and Kedar Jadhav failed to board the flight with the rest of the team on Wednesday.

Rohit had apparently requested BCCI to grant him a break for attending his cousin’s wedding after successfully leading Mumbai Indians to a record third IPL title. After assertion from the board, Rohit decided not to board the flight on Wednesday.

On the other hand, Kedar Jadhav’s case is a rather precarious one. The middle order batsman’s visa did not arrive on time despite BCCI’s repeated requests to the British High Commission. A lapse before such an important like Champions Trophy is unexpected.

However, there is nothing alarming as far as the availability of the cricketers is concerned. BCCI sources confirmed that both will take the flight on Friday and will be available for India’s first warm-up game against New Zealand on May 28. 

Meanwhile, Indian captain Virat Kohli said that his team would not be under any pressure of going in there as the defending champions before departing. 

Kohli also played down the hype around India’s tournament opener against Pakistan on June 4 by terming it as a ‘normal cricket match’.

India will play two warm-up games against New Zealand and Bangladesh before facing Pakistan in its first match of the tournament. Apart from Pakistan the other two teams in India’s group are South Africa and Sri Lanka.