Clash of world champions
Having cleared the first hurdle undefeated, world champions India and Australia will face off in the first semifinal at the Dubai International Stadium on Tuesday, making it the toughest challenge in the teams’ Champions Trophy journeys so far.
India, who won the T20 World Cup last year, recorded convincing wins against Bangladesh, Pakistan and New Zealand in their group fixtures. Australia, who are the reigning ODI World Cup champions, on the other hand beat England with a record chase before their games against South Africa and Afghanistan were washed out by rain. While India played all their games in Dubai, Australia landed in the city only a few days before the semifinal having played their games across Pakistan.
Despite the team’s familiarity with the venue, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma and coach Gautam Gambhir will have a selection dilemma to resolve. The experiment to replace pacer Harshit Rana with spinner Varun Chakravarthy against New Zealand worked well for the Indian side as the ‘mystery’ bowler registered a five-wicket haul on his Champions Trophy debut.
It will be interesting to see if Sharma again relies on Mohammed Shami and Hardik Pandya to manage the pace attack and picks Chakravarthy over Rana as both bowlers have not played much cricket against the Aussies.
India’s pre-tournament decision to fill the squad with five spinners drew a lot of flak from all corners but it is now proving to be a masterstroke on the slow pitches in Dubai.
India’s batting line-up has also stood up, with fine performances coming from Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer. Iyer scored fifties in the last two games — 56 against Pakistan and 79 against New Zealand. He provided stability to the innings by building essential partnerships. Gill had a century against Bangladesh and 46 against Pakistan. Kohli scored a match-winning century against Pakistan.
The all-round performances of Pandya (53 runs and three wickets) and Axar Patel (53 runs and four wickets) have also been key to India’s success so far.
For Australia, however, the campaign so far, including the build-up, has been anything but smooth. They arrived in Pakistan without the services of their feared pace trio of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc. In the absence of the ‘big’ names, the Australian pace attack is led by newcomers Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis and Spender Johnson.
Australia have only one genuine spinner in Adam Zampa. Captain Steve Smith has also thrown the ball to part-timers Glenn Maxwell, Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne to provide the team with breakthroughs.
Adding to their woes, Australia have lost opener Matthew Short, who hit a fifty against England, due to an injury. They have brought in young spin-bowling all-rounder Cooper Connolly as his replacement. The 21-year-old, who made his ODI debut in England last year, is unlikely to feature against India, but the ‘surprise’ element cannot be ruled out especially after Chakravarthy’s performance against New Zealand.
While the inexperienced Australian bowling line-up will have its task cut out against the experienced Indian batters, the onus will also be on Australia’s in-form batting line-up to tackle India’s spin challenge.
No ‘home’ ground
Questions have been raised about India getting an unfair advantage by playing all their games at one venue, but team captain Rohit Sharma dismissed these suggestions saying surfaces at the Dubai International Stadium have behaved differently.
“This is not our home and the pitch has given us different challenges,” said Sharma. “The three matches that we played here, the pitch has behaved differently. This is not our home, this is Dubai. We don’t play so many matches here, and this is new for us too.”
Sharma said his side needs to adapt to the surface quickly during the last-four match against Australia. “There are four or five surfaces that are being used here. I don’t know which pitch is going to be played in the semifinal. But whatever happens, we will have to adapt and see what is happening and what is not. And we will play on that,” he said.
“We saw that when the (New Zealand) bowlers were bowling, it was swinging a little bit. We did not see it in the first two games when our bowlers were bowling. In the game against Pakistan, we did not get to see that much spin, but against New Zealand there was a bit of it,” he added.
Given the importance of the match, Sharma said there will be pressure on the teams. “We will expect some nervy times as well in the middle. But that is how the game is being played these days. And you are talking about the semifinal. Obviously, the pressure will be on both teams to win that game,” he said.
