India's victory over New Zealand in the final of the Champions Trophy 2025 final has given the nation much to rejoice and cherish. It was a fantastic win and India's brand of white ball cricket has certainly been top notch and of the highest order. Their fantastic streak in the white ball game just keeps extending from strength to strength. They have now won 2 major championships within a span of 9 months, first with the marvellous victory in the T20 World Cup 2024 in June 2024 which came after a period of 11 years without a global trophy followed by this scintillating win in the Champions Trophy 2025 in March 2025. The only blemish was the unfortunate defeat at the hands of Australia in the home ODI World Cup of 2023. Taking all these events in unison, India has lost just one match across these 3 editions comprising of ODI World Cup, T20 World Cup and the Champions Trophy.
India also becomes the first side to win the Champions Trophy 3 times. They also attained a unique record by winning all their matches in this edition despite losing the toss every single time which is indeed quite a rare feat. The Indian men's team now has a tally of 7 global ICC cricket tournament victories with 3 CTs, 2 ODI WCs and 2 T20 WCs to boot. Rohit Sharma has now successfully led India to 2 major titles only being behind MS Dhoni who won India 3 titles by claiming a T20 WC, ODI WC and a CT. The other captains to have led India to world titles include Kapil Dev who won India's inaugural ODI World Cup 1983 and Saurav Ganguly who helped India win the Champions Trophy in a shared encounter with Sri Lanka in 2002.
This Champions Trophy victory however didn't come in to be so easy. There were lot of hoodoo's and strange incidents playing against India while taking the field for the final. India's final record in global events especially when held on a Sunday hasn't been a rosy picture with many painful defeats coming on this day. Normally across history, finals of any global sporting event gets played on a weekend to attract maximum crowd base and viewership. In the initial days when the ODI World Cup started, most of the finals were played on a Saturday but however off late majority of the final clashes invariably tend to take place on a Sunday. Let's briefly look at India's record in all the major finals played across limited overs internationals spanning the ODI World Cup, Champions Trophy and T20 World Cup.
1) Saturday - 25th June 1983 - ODI WC - India won by 38 runs against West Indies
2) Sunday - 15th Oct 2000 - CT - India lost by 4 wickets against New Zealand
3) Monday - 30th Sep 2002 - CT - India won but shared the trophy with Sri Lanka due to wash out
4) Sunday - 23rd Mar 2003 - ODI WC - India lost by 134 runs against Australia
5) Monday - 24th Sep 2007 - T20 WC - India won by 5 runs against Pakistan
6) Saturday - 2nd Apr 2011 - ODI WC - India won by 6 wickets against Sri Lanka
7) Sunday - 23rd Jun 2013 - CT - India won by 5 runs against England
8) Sunday - 6th Apr 2014 - T20 WC - India lost by 6 wickets against Sri Lanka
9) Sunday - 18th Jun 2017 - CT - India lost by 180 runs against Pakistan
10) Sunday - 19th Nov 2023 - ODI WC - India lost by 6 wickets against Australia
11) Saturday - 29th Jun 2024 - T20 WC - India won by 7 runs against South Africa
12) Sunday - 9th Mar 2025 - CT - India won by 4 wickets against New Zealand
Thus looking at the list above, India have won all 3 events when it took place on a Saturday. They also won 2 trophies when it was played on a Monday. The CT 2002 was scheduled initially on a Sunday but the match got rained off and moved to Monday which again resulted in the match being washed off by rain enabling India to share the trophy with tournament hosts Sri Lanka. The reason why the inaugural T20 WC 2007 final was held on Monday was because it was a public holiday on account of 'Heritage day' in South Africa deeming the final to be played on a Monday. Any day other than a weekend hosting a final is something one will not see often and is indeed quite a rare occasion. When it came to Sundays, out of 7 Sundays in which India has participated in finals, they have lost 5 and going in to the match against New Zealand they were 1-5 on the descendancy during finals held on Sunday. Some of the most damning defeats also have come on Sunday including a defeat almost a quarter century ago to New Zealand in this very own Champions Trophy in 2000. Also both India's final defeats in ODI WC came against Australia and behold both being Sundays. The last Champions Trophy final in 2017 also saw India getting a pasting by Pakistan by being served a royal thrashing. The only Sunday win which India enjoyed was on a rain affected final match on a late London evening in CT 2013 when the original 50 over match got rescheduled to 20 overs where India just about managed to pip England despite being on the back foot for most of the match. Thus Sundays in general haven't been to India's calling when it comes to major tournament finals.
When it comes to numbers, this happened to be the third straight global cricketing event which happened to be played on a date involving 9 in some way. 19th Nov 2023 was the final date of ODI WC 2023 with 29th June 2024 being the final date of T20 WC 2024 and the current Champions Trophy final was held on 9th March 2025. India had lost the ODI WC final in 2023 played on a Sunday whereas they won the T20 WC final played on a Saturday. Coming to the CT final of 2025, it was again played on a Sunday somewhat being stacked against India. In numerology, the normal tendency is to add up the digits to make it all within the ambit of 9 numbers. The previous CT final was held on 18th June 2017 where the date equated is 9 (1+8) and India got a hammering. This particular CT final was also on 9th March 2025 equating to 9 thus giving the jitters a wee bit.
Coming to months, June has been pretty favourable for India with them winning an ODI World Cup, Champions Trophy and a T20 World Cup in this particular period. They however lost the CT final of 2017 in June. September is a month where India won both their finals viz the CT 2002 (shared) and T20 WC 2007. 2 titles have come in March (CT 2025) & April (ODI WC 2011) though both these months have also witnessed the team losing a final viz ODI WC 2003 in March & T20 WC 2014 in April. India have however only lost finals when played in October and November. Hence it's 3/4 in June, 2/2 in September, 1/2 in March, 1/2 in April, 0/1 in October and 0/1 in November. With respect to the dates within the months, India has been super successful in the 3rd part of the month ranging from dates 21st to 30th with 5 of their titles coming in dates of 23 (23rd Jun 2013 CT), 24 (24th Sep 2007 T20 WC), 25 (25th Jun 1983 ODI WC), 29 (29th Jun 2024 T20 WC) and 30 (30th Sep 2002 CT). The only one blemish was another 23 with India losing the ODI WC final on 23rd March 2003. In the first 10 days of the month, the success has been reasonable with India winning 2 titles (2nd Apr 2011 ODI WC and 9th Mar 2025 CT) but also losing 1 final (6th Apr 2014 T20 WC). The days between 11th to 20th has been outright worst for India as they have lost all 3 finals played during this time (15th Oct 2000 CT, 18th Jun 2017 CT and 19th Nov 2023 ODI WC). In terms of numerology dates, #2 has been very good for India with 2 of the most memorable triumphs coming on these dates (2nd Apr 2011 ODI WC and 29th Jun 2024 T20 WC). The other 5 titles have come on #3,5,6,7,9. In terms of losses, 2 of them have come on #6 date (15th Oct 2000 CT and 6th Apr 2014 T20 WC) while others have been spread across dates of #1,5,9.
Another cosmic connection at play happens to be the colour of the jersey. Ever since coloured clothing became a thing with Limited Overs Internationals beginning from the 1992 ODI World Cup onwards, India have largely sported a predominant colour of "Blue". Each of the planets ruling a day are generally associated with a colour and it might be strange but history has witnessed that specific colours worn on select days have had quite a say. Listing below the days which are ruled by the planets and the associated colour
Sunday - Sun - Orange (Also can be copper color which is orangish red or reddish brown)
Monday - Moon - White (Generally said to be Milky White)
Tuesday - Mars - Red (Associated with Blood Red colour)
Wednesday - Mercury - Green (Shades of Green both light and dark)
Thursday - Jupiter - Yellow (Any type of Yellow or even Gold colour)
Friday - Venus - White/Blue (More of Curdish White and lighter shade of Blue)
Saturday - Saturn - Black (Pitch dark black or a semblance of a dark blue colour)
Generally, you would see that Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday ruled by Sun, Mars and Jupiter get along well with one another. Australia have been very successful in cricketing finals held on Sunday with the Yellow colour proving to be very prominent. Even the West Indies who normally wear shades of Red/Maroon have seemingly been reasonably successful in finals when held on Sunday. The colours of Wednesday, Friday and Saturday ruled by Mercury, Venus & Saturn are said to be more in sync with each other. Monday ruled by Moon tends to be quite neutral and gets along with both pairs in equal elan. There is a saying that Moon has no enemies. In the second set, Venus ruling Friday & Saturn ruling Saturday are said to be hardcore enemies with Sun who rules the day of Sunday but however this exception does not hold true for Mercury which rules Wednesday. Hence Green colour is equally prominent for both Saturdays and Sundays with the former perhaps being a touch more favourable. In fact South Africa who have won 4 Rugby World Cups have won all their 4 finals when played on a Saturday. They however lost the T20 WC final played against India on a Saturday.
For India who sports significantly the blue colour, Saturdays have been very successful with them winning all their 3 big ticket final encounters. Even the odd Monday has proved lucky. However Sunday ruled by Sun hasn't really been to India's favour with Venus & Sun seeing bitter enmity. The one thing which worked excessively to India's favour in the CT final of 2025 is that their opponent New Zealand were donning black attire which again is very unfavourable on a Sunday with the enmity of Saturn & Sun being equally or more worse than between Venus & Sun. It would be very interesting to note that when the Kiwis toppled India in the CT final on a Sunday 25 years back in 2000, they were not wearing cardinal black and in fact had streaks of Green & Grey which tilted the tide in their favour. It must also be said that New Zealand's record has been pathetic on all the finals when they have gone with full black. They lost the 2015 ODI WC to Australia badly, had a massive heartbreak by losing to England in the ODI WC of 2019 on boundary count. This continued in the 2021 T20 WC as well when they lost the final to Australia in the UAE. Ironically, the Kiwis only major white ball cricketing triumph came when they were not in full black in CT 2000. The All Blacks are a successful Rugby side and all their 3 victories so far came when they played the final on a Saturday. Their 2 defeats in finals came to South Africa who wear green which was also on a Saturday. Generally it is seen that when a team wears a colour which rules that day plays against a team where the colour also happens to be favourable, the former tends to lose because of the colour being overbearing and working against it.
In this particular final of CT 2025, one advantage which India had was that New Zealand too wore a colour of Black which is completely inimical on the day of Sunday which played to India's advantage unlike the 2000 Champions Trophy final. It is been advised that Black colour especially has an extremely negative effect on Sunday. India obviously had the mastery of their squad working tricks on the Kiwis but no denying that this jersey colour effect also played against them. One other interesting coincidence to note is that in the T20 WC final 2024, the top scorer and Man of the Match was Virat Kohli for scoring 76 and voila the same thing repeated in the CT Final 2025 where the top scorer and player of the match was Rohit Sharma who also garnered the same score of 76 with the bat.
Thus when you look at the overall scheme of things, these tend to be interesting takeaways. Whatever said and done, the skill sets, temperament and will to win is what reigns supreme and these things tend to take a backseat when the former tends to be paramount. However there is no refuting the fact that in sport, luck also does have an element and these superstitions and cosmic energies have proved to be of consequence at least as per the patterns at play and what history has suggested in the past.
