Make it a thrilling ride. The final between India and New Zealand for the 2025 Champions Trophy is expected to be a thrilling cricket match. While India has reached the final undefeated, New Zealand lost only one match-to Rohit Sharma and Co. in the group stage. The Champions Trophy-winning final for India in 2025 will be their third-straight ICC limited-overs competition final after the ODI World Cup 2023, T20 World Cup 2024. Going into the India-New Zealand Champions Trophy 2025, one story being marketed is whether the Rohit Sharma-led team is at an advantage.
All the matches of India were held in Dubai, which has been decided beforehand by the BCCI not to send its team to Pakistan, who are designated hosts of the Champions Trophy 2025. While all other teams moved around venues and countries, India 5 matches have been held in Dubai.
The former Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin was hitting hard upon the ‘venue advantage’ propagators.
“Just laughing at all those questions which come to our captain, coaches in the press conference regarding home advantage. In 2009 Champions Trophy, South Africa played all their matches at the same venue and they did not qualify for the final. Well, it’s not South Africa’s fault really. So let us stop that. India were class and should have reached the final on top of their performances. Last time India played in Dubai was during COVID. After that, New Zealand, England, South Africa played in Dubai,” says Ravichandran Ashwin on his Youtube channel.
“Tossing mud on our players is what I don’t want to see. This narrative, one team comes to India and lose 4-0 and blame the pitch? Who buys into that narrative including Indians is what concerns me. For some reason, I am still paranoid. I don’t feel quite good. After New Zealand’s win against South Africa, I feel like, once again can they hurt us.”
The travels for the teams to fit in differing playing conditions have created a flare in the cricketing circles, with ex-cricketers like Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton being among the personalities who have alleged that the scheduling simply advantages India, who have a massively reduced travel time, play at just one venue where they know the conditions well, and this will have been a squad selected in keeping with Dubai.
Stead went on to tell the media about the match situation: “I think there’s no doubt that to come here or play Lahore and travel full day yesterday just takes it away out of you a little bit, but we’ve got a couple of days now to do a bit of recovery alongside a bit of planning and training towards the game; but I suppose now we are deep into the tournament and sometimes not always a lot of training is what you need. It is getting your body and your mind right to compete in the final, so that will be our key focus over the next couple of days.”