Champions Trophy 2025 final: New Zealand consider this India star as their 'biggest threat'

India will take on New Zealand in the high-octane summit clash of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 at the Dubai International Stadium on Sunday.

Meanwhile, New Zealand coach Gary Stead conceded that mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy will be their 'biggest threat' in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 final.

 Nullifying mystery spinner

Gary also admitted that the Kiwis will put on their ‘thinking caps’ to work on the ways to negate the Indian mystery spinner.

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"We certainly expect him to play after getting 5/42 against us in the last game. He’s a class bowler, and showed his skills against us last time and he’s a big threat in the game," said Gary in a recent interaction in Dubai.

"So we’ll be putting our thinking caps on around how we nullify that and how we can still score runs against him," he added.

Cues From Group Stage Match

Notably, New Zealand had lost against India in a group stage match of the mega event some days back. According to Gary, Kiwis will look to take some cues from the last Group A match they played here against India a few days back. 

However, the coach refused to read too much into India’s familiarity with the conditions here.

"The decision around the schedule is out of our hands, so it’s not something we worry about too much. India have got to play all their games here in Dubai, but we have had a game here and we’ll learn very quickly from that experience," said Gary.