A lot of the build-up to the semi-finals of the ongoing Champions Trophy has been crowded with the ‘undue-advantage-to-India talk’ since the Men in Blue play all their matches in Dubai, stay in the same hotel, don’t have to travel, have knowledge about the surface but Steve Smith quashed it.
Australian captain Steve Smith quashed the ‘undue-advantage-to-India’ talks after his side lost to the two-time world champions in the Champions Trophy semi-final in Dubai. A lot of the build-up to the business end of the tournament has been acquired by the narrative of India having the biggest advantage among all eight teams since they play all their matches in Dubai, stay in the same hotel, don’t have to travel and have got accustomed to the square at the stadium since they have been here for now almost three weeks now.
However, Smith, whose team failed to kick on and get to a score of 280-290 in the knockout game admitted that they were outplayed in all three facets of the game and conceded that India were the better team on the day. “Yeah, look, I’m not buying into it [India having an unfair advantage].
“I think it is what it is. India obviously played some really good cricket here. The surface kind of suits their style with the spinners that they’ve got and the seamers that they have at their disposal for a wicket like that. They played well, they outplayed us, and they deserve the victory,” Smith said in the post-match press conference after India won the semi-final by six wickets, chasing 265 in 48.1 overs.
India’s head coach Gautam Gambhir was a bit aggressive in his response while urging the ‘perpetual cribbers’ to grow up. Gambhir listed reasons in detail citing that they haven’t trained at the Dubai Stadium in particular and every time they have had to encounter a different wicket.
“See, first of all, this is as neutral a venue for us as it is for any other team,” Gambhir said in the presser. “We have not played here. I don’t remember when last we played here. And in fact, we didn’t plan anything like that. The plan was that if you pick two frontline spinners in the 15-man squad, then even if we played in Pakistan or anywhere, we would have picked two frontline spinners because this was a competition in the subcontinent.
“So, it’s not like we wanted to spin a spinners’ web. If you look at it, we only played one frontline spinner in the first two matches. We played two frontline spinners in this match and the previous match.
“And there’s a lot of debate about the undue advantage and all that. What undue advantage? We haven’t practised here even for one day. We’re practising at the ICC Academy. And the conditions there and here are 180 degrees different. Some people are just perpetual cribbers, man. They’ve got to grow up. So, I feel that there was nothing like we had any undue advantage,” Gambhir added.
India picked as many as five spinners in their squad with an expectation of Dubai surfaces playing slow, which eventually ended up being the case. Even though pacer Mohammed Shami admitted that the familiarity with the conditions helped him, he didn’t directly contradict Gambhir’s statement, who lambasted those who suggested that Dubai conditions played into India’s hands.
