Not Steve Smith! Shane Watson Backs This All-Rounder To Be Australias Standout Participant At Champions Trophy 2025
Former all-rounder Shane Watson believes the present ODI World Cup holders Australia will pose a serious risk on the ongoing Champions Trophy 2025 regardless of a bunch of damage woes. Watson has backed Glenn Maxwell to be Australia’s most vital participant on the ongoing ICC Champions Trophy 2025.
Watson, who is likely one of the 4 Occasion Ambassadors, believes that Maxwell’s latest type places him in place to dominate the match.
“The stand-out participant for me is Glenn Maxwell. With what I’ve seen lately, particularly within the Huge Bash, I imagine he has a few of his greatest cricket in entrance of him throughout the subsequent two or three years and I’d be very stunned if he doesn’t dominate this Champions Trophy,” Watson wrote in his ICC column.
The 36-year-old Maxwell had completed the 2024-25 Huge Bash League because the fourth-highest run-getter, amassing 325 runs from 9 innings at a strike fee of 186.78. The fiery striker of the ball had additionally been pivotal to Australia’s ODI World Cup 2023, the place he completed with 400 runs from 9 video games.
Whereas Watson famous that Maxwell’s function within the Australian batting posed a risk to his total consistency, the previous Champions Trophy winner believes the celebrities are aligning for him to ship large.
“He had that unbelievable innings in opposition to Afghanistan within the ICC Males’s Cricket World Cup 2023, the place he scored a double century, however he has struggled to be constant at occasions. That’s the character of his function within the staff,” he stated.
“Nonetheless, it now simply feels prefer it has all fallen into place for him, and that’s with every little thing in his life, not simply his cricket, so I believe he’ll play a pivotal half,” he added.
Notably, Australia are lacking some main names of their Champions Trophy squad with skipper Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Marsh having been dominated out owing to damage.
Nonetheless, Watson believes the Steve Smith-led facet will nonetheless be the staff to beat.
“I believe Australia can be very laborious to beat, even when their bowling squad shouldn’t be fairly as skilled as they could in any other case have been,” he stated.
