AFTER remaining unbeaten in the ongoing ICC Champions Trophy, India will now face New Zealand in the final on Sunday (9) 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 citing political tensions.

But the other seven teams in the ODI competition had to shuttle between three Pakistani cities and the United Arab Emirates.

This arrangement also underlined India’s outsized influence over cricket.

It has now sparked a debate with England’s former players Naseer Hussain and Mike Atherton observing that India has an ‘undeniable advantage’ by playing all their matches in Dubai.

The International Cricket Council, which has former BCCI secretary Jay Shah as its current chairman, has been criticised for letting India camp in Dubai.

While other teams shuttled between the four venues, India did not face any travel hassle and gained valuable insights into the conditions in Dubai having played all the group matches here.

India coach Gautam Gambhir on Tuesday (4) lashed out at critics of his team playing every game in Dubai.

India has played all its matches 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.

South Africa batsman David Miller said, “It’s only an hour and 40 minute flight, but the fact that we had to do that was not ideal.”

South Africa made what was ultimately a wasted trip soon after defeating England in Karachi on Saturday.

“It’s early morning, it’s after a game and we had to fly. Then we got to Dubai at 4:00 pm.

“And at 7.30 am 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.”

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.”

India won their last group match against New Zealand with four spinners and emerged victorious again with similar tactics.

No ‘spin trap’

“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 Read More….