India coach Gautam Gambhir on Tuesday lashed out at critics of his team playing every game in Dubai, after beating Australia by four wickets in the Champions Trophy semi-finals.
India will face South Africa or New Zealand in the final on Sunday in Dubai. India have played all their matches at the same venue after they refused to tour nominal hosts Pakistan for the eight-nation event.
Lahore would have hosted the final had India missed out.
India remain unbeaten with four victories at the Dubai International Stadium, while other teams have had to travel between three Pakistani cities and Dubai.
South Africa were forced to travel to Dubai despite not knowing if they would even be playing their semi-final there, and then had to travel straight back to Pakistan after India’s win over New Zealand.
India also knew they would be playing the first semi-final before the tournament even started if they got that far, while other teams had to wait to see where India finished in their group.
India are unbeaten in the 10 ODIs they have played in Dubai, winning nine.
“First of all, this is as neutral a venue for us as it is for any other team,” an agitated Gambhir told reporters, insisting India had not enjoyed any advantage over other teams because they were not playing at home.
“We have not played here. I don’t remember which tournament we played in this stadium last. And in fact, we didn’t plan anything like that…
“The plan was that if you pick two front-line spinners in the 15-man squad, then even if we played in Pakistan or anywhere, we would have picked two front-line spinners because it was a competition on the subcontinent.”
Ironically, Gambhir delivered his spicy retort while sitting behind a sign on the press conference podium that read: “ICC Champions Trophy 2025 — Pakistan.”
India won their last group match against New Zealand with four spinners and emerged victorious again with similar tactics.
“It was nothing like we wanted to set up a spinners’ trap,” Gambhir said, focusing on the pitch rather than the discrepancies in travel between teams and schedule concerns.
“If you look at it, we only played one front-line spinner in the first three matches. We only played two front-line spinners in this match or the previous match. So, it was nothing like that.
“And there’s a lot of debate about the undue advantage and all that. What undue advantage? We haven’t practised here even for a day. We’re practising at the ICC Academy.
“If you look at the wickets there and here, the difference is between the ground and the sky. Some people are just perpetual cribbers, man.
“They’ve got to grow up. So, I feel that there was nothing like we had any undue advantage or we had planned something like that.” (Fox Sports)
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