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Gautam Gambhir has called out former and current cricketers for claiming India have benefitted from playing at a single venue throughout the Champions Trophy.
Gautam Gambhir has a chance at winning his first ICC trophy as India head coach this Sunday. (AP Photo)
India‘s impressive run in the ongoing Champions Trophy 2025 has led to claim that the Rohit Sharma-led side has an ‘advantage’ since they are playing at a single venue and have a better grasp of the conditions than others. As per the Hybrid Model, India are playing all their matches of the tournament in Dubai while the rest of the games hosted across three cities in Pakistan.
The likes of Michael Atherton, Nasser Hussain, Pat Cummins, Rassie van der Dussen among others have said that the Indian team is benefitting by having all their games at a single venue in addition to not having to travel either.
India head coach Gautam Gambhir has called out ‘perpetual cribbers’ while claiming that Dubai is a neutral venue for his team as it is for others, and he cannot recall the last time they played a tournament at this stadium.
“I know, there’s a lot of debate about the undue advantage,” Gambhir said during a media interaction following India’s win over Australia in the Champions Trophy semifinal on Tuesday night. “But what is an undue advantage? First of all, this is as much of a neutral venue for us as it is for any other team. I don’t remember which tournament we played in this stadium last time.”
“We haven’t practiced here even for a day. We practiced in the ICC Academy. The conditions there and here are 180 degrees different. Some people are just perpetual cribbers. So, I feel we didn’t have any undue advantage,” he added.
India packed their squad with spin bowling options, but Gambhir claims it wasn’t a pre-planned move and that their have just two specialist spinners while others are allrounders.
“The plan was that if you pick two spinners in a 15-member squad, then if we play in Pakistan or anywhere else, we’ll pick two spinners because this is a competition on a subcontinent. So, we didn’t plan to play any spinners. If you look at it, we’ve only played two or three spinners in the last two matches and the rest were all all-rounders,” Gambhir said.
For more in-depth coverage of the Champions Trophy, check out the latest Points Table to see where your favorite team stands. Stay updated on the tournament’s top performers with the Most Runs and Most Wickets leaderboards. Keep following for all the latest updates!
- Location :
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE)
