New Zealand announce squad for Champions Trophy 2025 

by Sahil Jain
New Zealand Champions Trophy squad announced

New Zealand have announced their squad for the upcoming 2025 Champions Trophy. The Mitchell Santner-led team seems to have a good mix of experienced and young players. Their batting has quite a bit of experience while the bowling has a mixture of both.  

The pace-bowling department will be led by Matt Henry and Lockie Ferguson. However, three inexperienced yet promising names have been included: Ben Sears, Will O’Rourke, and Nathan Smith.  

Sears who is yet to make his ODI debut has impressed in the other two formats already, having played one Test (five wickets) and 17 T20Is (19 wickets). Will O’Rourke has grabbed a lot of eyeballs through his performances in Test cricket where he has 36 scalps after 10 games. He has even played nine white-ball fixtures (6 ODIs – 8 wickets and 3 T20Is – 4 wickets). Nathan Smith has played two Tests and five ODIs and has taken seven and five wickets respectively. 

All three spin options are all-rounders. Apart from skipper Santner, Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips and Michael Bracewell are straightforward choices. Meanwhile, the batting looks very settled with Devon Conway, Kane Williamson, Tom Latham, Daryl Mitchell, Will Young and Mark Chapman have been around for a while and adding quite a bit of depth to the side. 

This is the same squad that will travel to Pakistan for the tri-series which also includes South Africa. That series will start on the 8th of February which is the same day as the final of the SA20. Thus, Williamson and Conway will have a quick turnaround between the T20 league in South Africa and the tri-series in Pakistan. Lockie Ferguson will be unavailable for the tri-series due to his ILT20 commitments. Jacob Duffy has been named as his replacement for that series and will be on standby. 

We’re lucky to have a large group with significant tournament experience: New Zealand head coach Gary Stead

Gary Stead
Gary Stead

New Zealand’s head coach Gary Stead is quite satisfied with the squad. He feels there is good experience in the side and these are the best options to succeed in Pakistan and UAE. 

We’re currently blessed with a lot of quality players and that certainly made for some challenging selection discussions. Ultimately, we’ve gone with the squad that will offer us the best options to perform well in the expected conditions in Pakistan and the UAE. We’re lucky to have a large chunk of the group with significant international and tournament experience to draw upon,” head coach Gary Stead was quoted saying.  

New Zealand are placed in Group A alongside hosts Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. They will face Pakistan in the opening game of the Champions Trophy in Karachi on the 19th of February. 

SQUAD: Mitchell Santner (captain), Tom Latham (wicket-keeper), Kane Williamson, Will Young, Devon Conway, Mark Chapman, Daryl Mitchell, Michael Bracewell, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Lockie Ferguson, Matt Henry, Will O’Rourke, Ben Sears, Nathan Smith. 

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