Rohit Sharma, captain of India, has dismissed the “home advantage” arguments for the ongoing Champions Trophy. While the other teams are traveling back and forth from Pakistan to UAE only to compete against India, Team India is playing all their games in the showpiece event in Dubai. Many past cricketers from Pakistan, England, and Australia do not approve of this. England former cricketer Nasser Hussain said recently Pakistan are the hosts but India have the home advantage.
Rohit Sharma dismissed any supposed benefit of competing at the same venue by noting that the pitch has been different in Dubai in all three games of the event so far on the eve of the first semifinal against Australia. “Every time, the pitch is giving you different challenges.” Upon our three games here, the field has acted in a distinctive way. Dubai, this is not where we live. This is also a first for us as we don’t play many games here,”” Rohit remarked in the pre-match press conference.
Rohit noted there was movement for the new ball bowlers upfront when New Zealand was fielding against India. Fast bowlers had nothing to present from the first two games against Pakistan and Bangladesh, to be honest. Early help allowed New Zealand bowlers to trim India’s top 3 early, bringing them down to 30/3.
“When the bowlers were bowling, we noticed it was swinging somewhat.” We didn’t observe it in those first two games. We could see quite some spin today; in the last match it was rather little. So, every surface is undergoing several changes. The India captain also said therefore we don’t know what is to come on this field and what is not going to happen.”