Predicting India's top 3 wicket-takers in Champions Trophy 2025 ft. Arshdeep Singh

India, winners of the 2002 (joint) and 2013 ICC Champions Trophies, have begun their preparations for the 2025 edition of the tournament, which is slated to begin on Wednesday, February 19, in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. India will play all their matches in the latter nation.

The Men in Blue, however, play their first game, against eastern neighbours Bangladesh a day later, on Thursday, February 20. Rohit Sharma's men come into this tournament on the back of a swashbuckling 3-0 series win over England at home and will be keen on continuing in the same vein of form.

Head coach Gautam Gambhir, whose position was under scrutiny after India lost the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 1-3 to Australia, would like nothing better than to prove his detractors wrong and bring home the trophy the nation had lost so painfully to Pakistan in the final of the 2017 edition.

While India's batters will undoubtedly be whom the hopes of millions will rest, their bowlers will have a lot of work to do to ensure that the team comes out of the group stages and qualifies for the semifinal, and eventually the final.

Speculating on players' performances is not something we do as a matter of course at Sportskeeda, but with such a marquee tournament upon us in less than a couple of days, what better way to mark its arrival than to predict which of India's bowlers could end up with the most wickets?

We take a look at the three players whom we predict to be the three highest wicket-takers for India:

#3 Axar Patel (5-8 wickets)

Left-arm spinner Axar Patel, who has also established himself as a predominant all-rounder in the Indian team after his exploits with the bat in hand against England (52 and 41* in the first two ODIs), will be expected to pick up somewhere between five to eight wickets in this eight-nation tournament.

While Patel is quite similar to fellow Gujarati Ravindra Jadeja, he offers variety in his flight, deception and turn. The former is also someone who can be trusted to do the job for India with the new ball if captain Rohit Sharma and head coach Gautam Gambhir want to.

Patel is someone whom many batters find hard to score against owing to the good areas he usually bowls in.

#2 Ravindra Jadeja (8-10 wickets)

All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja is, interestingly, India's all-time leading wicket-taker in this tournament with 16 scalps to his name. He will be expected to come second in the team's leading wicket-takers with somewhere between eight to ten scalps. Jadeja will be a handy asset to skipper Rohit Sharma in this tournament.

Given that India will play all their matches in Dubai, Jadeja's skillset on flat and slow batting surfaces will become more than useful, and the team management will be keen on playing him in the XI in every game.

Jadeja's accuracy, as well as his experience, makes him one of the most fearsome spinners currently operating in the middle overs of one-day cricket.

#1 Arshdeep Singh (more than 10 wickets)

Left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh is expected to be India’s leading wicket-taker in this tournament with upwards of ten scalps at the very least. The Punjab pacer has been among the most consistent bowlers for India in the recent past and will share the new ball alongside the returning Mohammed Shami in this tournament.

Arshdeep, who is not very experienced in ODIs, might feel a tad out of place in the beginning but the team management’s support has given him a lot of confidence, which can be seen in his performances in T20Is. The same, we hope, will be reflected in this tournament as well as he leads the Indian bowling vanguard,