India play Australia in the first semi-final tomorrow (March 4).
The Indian team is set to face a new twist ahead of their Champions Trophy 2025 semi-final against Australia tomorrow (March 4). With the Men in Blue playing all their games in Dubai due to travel restrictions in Pakistan, controversy has arisen criticising Rohit Sharma and Co for having an unfair advantage of playing at the same venue.
Thus, in a bid to address the growing narrative, it is now understood that the tournament organisers will prepare a fresh pitch for the marquee clash.
This latest development raises a major question over India’s four-spinner strategy, which they used to topple New Zealand in their last group stage match.
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India opted to replace Harshit Rana with Varun Chakravarthy as the fourth spinner alongside Jadeja, Axar and Kuldeep against the Kiwis and it paid dividends as he ended up taking up a five-wicket haul.
However, with a new pitch now expected to be used, India faces a selection conundrum. While India skipper Rohit Sharma is yet to have a look at the pitch as India had an off day today, Australia captain Steve Smith has been privy and gave his insights about the conditions.
“Obviously the whole square block is pretty dry. Having spoken to the groundsman just now, a dry surface had a lot of traffic, so we’ve seen how the wickets have played”.
Going by Smith’s words, the pitch in the offing will be slow and dry and is unlikely to be different from the previous games at the venue.
This would allow India to follow a similar template from the NZ game if they want but it remains to be seen which way the Indian management opts to go against the Aussies.
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