Gautam Gambhir slammed critics who questioned India's 'advantage' of playing all Champions Trophy matches in Dubai.
Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir slammed critics wo questioned India having an “unfair advantage” since they are playing all their Champions Trophy 2025 matches in Dubai. Gambhir was speaking at the post-match press conference after the Men in Blue defeated Australia by four wickets to qualify for Sunday’s final.
India are playing all their matches in Dubai following the team’s refusal to travel to Pakistan due to security concerns. Australia captain Pat Cummins and cricketer-turned-commentator Michael Atherton were among those who claimed an advantage for India because they play at a single venue.
“Kaunsi undue advantage? We practice at ICC Academy where conditions are different from what we get here at the stadium. Some people are perpetual cribbers, they need to grow up,” Gambhir said after India’s win against Australia.
“First of all, this is as neutral a venue for us as it is for any other team,” Gambhir added. “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.”
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Former England captain Jos Buttler and South Africa’s Rassie van der Dussen had also spoken up on the issue. The South African said that it didn’t need a “rocket scientist” to know that India had an advantage because they were playing at a single venue.
That India had the ability to train and play in one city, avoiding travel that the other countries had to take quite a lot of gave India an edge that they could exploit according to Van der Dussen.
It was this notion that Gambhir vehemently fought off after the win against Australia saw India enter their third successive ICC trophy final.
India were set a target of 265 in their semi-final against Australia on Tuesday. Virat Kohli once again stole the show with a knock of 84 from 98 balls. Gambhir hailed Kohli, calling him “phenomenal ODI player”.
“He is a phenomenal one-day cricketer. He knows how to plan his runs, he knows how to plan whether we are batting first or chasing, he adapts to the conditions really quickly, and that is why experienced and high-quality players are very important,” said the 43-year-old. India will lock horns against either South Africa or New Zealand in the final on Sunday.
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