The Proteas had to fly to Dubai from Karachi on Sunday, a day after their last league-stage fixture against England.
David Miller is the latest player to call out the unfair scheduling of the Champions Trophy 2025, which unnecessarily prompted South Africa to travel to Dubai. The Proteas had to fly to Dubai from Karachi on Sunday, a day after their last league-stage fixture against England.
However, India won the contest against New Zealand and ended up at the top of the table, which meant they had to travel back to Lahore within a few hours of landing in Dubai. Clearly, Miller was not pleased with this unnecessary change in their stay and felt it was not an “ideal situation.”
“It’s only an hour-and-40-minute flight, but the fact that we had to do that [was not ideal]. It’s early morning, it’s after a game, and we had to fly. Then we got to Dubai at 4 PM. And at 7.30 in the morning we had to come back. It doesn’t make it nice. It’s not like we flew five hours, and we had enough time to recover and recuperate. But it was not an ideal situation still.”
Both Australia and South Africa travelled to Dubai on Sunday and spent the day watching the India—New Zealand match to determine who would stay back. That’s bound to irk players, who cope with travelling fatigue after finishing their previous encounter.
David Miller played a valiant knock in a losing cause in the semifinal encounter between South Africa and New Zealand. The famed middle order didn’t come to the party for South Africa in a tall run chase, and Miller was left stranded at one end.
ALSO READ:
His start wasn’t too fluent either, as the southpaw was 13 in 20 balls in 37 overs. While he played occasional shots, wickets falling on the other end didn’t allow Miller to go all-out against the Kiwi bowlers.
Eventually, when the target became unreachable, he had no choice but to unleash big shots. Miller showed his brute power and tremendous range to accelerate brilliantly and completed a magnificent ton on the final delivery of the match.
Unfortunately, another ton came in a losing cause in a knockout fixture. Nevertheless, it was a marvellous effort from Miller, who showed there’s still a lot left in his tank.
For more updates, follow CricXtasy on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram, and YouTube.
