Dubai [UAE], March 8 (ANI): Ahead of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 final against New Zealand, Team India's head coach Gautam Gambhir outlined the reason behind shuffling the batting order and revealed that Axar's number five role allows him to express himself and exhibit his talent to the world.

India will play New Zealand in the final of the ICC Champions Trophy on March 9 at the Dubai International Stadium. India is undefeated in the tournament so far, and the Kiwis have looked rock solid with bat and ball under Mitchell Santner's captaincy.

The clash promises to be an epic sequel to the 2000 ICC Champions Trophy final, which New Zealand won. Men in Blue would like to avenge losses to the Blackcaps in the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup semifinal and 2021 ICC World Test Championship final.

India did not travel to Pakistan due to security reasons and played all their matches in Dubai, unlike other teams in the tournament who had to travel from Pakistan to Dubai and vice-versa during the league stage and semifinal for their matches. With teams having to adapt to different playing conditions, it has generated some controversy in cricketing circles, with ex-cricketers like Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton being among the personalities having alleged that the scheduling offers an advantage to India because they have a massively reduced travel time, play at just one venue where they know the conditions well and selected their squad keeping Dubai in mind.

'We have answered it before that we don't care what people say. I think he's a quality player, and it is important. This is how cricket is meant to be played, and this is how we will play the sport. This is how we will continue playing the sport. We know the quality and ability Axar has, and we're going to keep giving him that opportunity at number five so that he can keep performing and, more importantly, keep expressing and keep showing his talent to the world,' Gambhir said at the post-match press conference on Tuesday night.

Apart from the selection of players, Axar Patel's promotion to the number five spot and the success he has reaped have been the talk of the town in the ongoing marquee event.

In the semi-finals against Australia, Axar offered stability with his composed 27(30) featuring a sole boundary and as many towering maximums. Overall, he has thrived in his new role in the tournament, amassing 69 runs in two matches.

Further, Gambhir went on to offer clarity on sending KL Rahul at number six instead of a spot higher in the order. For the former southpaw, sending Rahul lower in the order adds more depth to batting, allowing India to play the game the way they want to.

'You know, in a sport like cricket and in a team sport, numbers don't matter, batting positions don't matter, it's the impact that matters. You should only be thinking of picking yourself in the playing 11 and rest whatever is needed of you to do it for the team you should be happily doing it and KL has done that and KL has done that really happily and he's done that really well at number six as well. People keep talking about it, I don't know for how long they've been talking about it, why we've pushed KL at number six,' Gambhir said.

'Just we feel that he gives us more depth, and that is how we want to play the game. And the conversations which I've had with him or the conversations which I've had with everyone are exactly the same. In a team sport, especially in cricket and in this format, we are not going to talk about batting positions. We're going to talk about how we can create that impact and what is needed of the team. We'll continue doing that,' he added. (ANI)