Final – India v New Zealand – Sunday, March 9 – Dubai

[Shri]

spoken like a true South Asian resident

Wait I thought you were pakistani when laying out that rancid bait. Where is this idiot from anyway

 

[Bahnz]

Btw, has Dubai turning big been a thing for a while? I always remembered it being a fairly bland surface that doesn't offer much for pace or spin.

 

[Sunil1z]

Btw, has Dubai turning big been a thing for a while? I always remembered it being a fairly bland surface that doesn't offer much for pace or spin.

Always supports spin in summer season. We played Asia Cup in 2018 here . Definitely supported spin bowling.

 

[Zinzan]

Played India, the better team in the end. We can only speculate whether Henry would have made much of a difference in defending that fairly ordinary total. I think more than likely he wouldn't have.

 

[SteveNZ]

One big advantage that India had was that they could plan their squad based on Dubai conditions and pack the squad with spinners. If NZ knew they would qualify for the final and face India in Dubai, they may have taken Ish Sodhi instead of say Nathan Smith or Duffy in their squad. All other teams had to plan their squad for two different conditions while India had to plan for only one.

Yeah this is a good post. I completely agree

 

[Bahseph]

Well done India. I think the bottom line is that the tournament and scheduling was in their favour, but you can’t blame the players for that. This is a team that had Jadeja walking out at 8 and six proper bowling options.

 

[Silver Silva]

NZ's middle order also cost them the game .

Mitchell, Latham & Phillips batted for 183 balls (30 overs) and only scored 111 runs between them.

111 in 30 overs is about 3,7 runs per over and this was after Ravindra got NZ off to a pretty fast start. Yes they lost Ravindra & Williamson in quick succesion but you expect a player like Mitchell to catch up if he spends 100 balls at the crease. Latham 14 off 30 not good enough no matter the context , Phillips striking at 65 after 50 balls , that's not what he is in the team to do.

Michael Bracewell who hasn't always been a fan favorite saved some blushes out there ..
Bracewell is not a better batsman than the middle order guys above him but he played with an intent and purpose that is needed in big tournaments.

 

[Sunil1z]

NZ's middle order also cost them the game .

Mitchell, Latham & Phillips batted for 183 balls (30 overs) and only scored 111 runs between them.

111 in 30 overs is about 3,7 runs per over and this was after Ravindra got NZ off to a pretty fast start. Yes they lost Ravindra & Williamson in quick succesion but you expect a player like Mitchell to catch up if he spends 100 balls at the crease. Latham 14 off 30 not good enough no matter the context , Phillips striking at 65 after 50 balls , that's not what he is in the team to do.

Michael Bracewell who hasn't always been a fan favorite saved some blushes out there ..
Bracewell is not a better batsman than the middle order guys above him but he played with an intent and purpose that is needed in big tournaments.

They were afraid of batting collapse . This is the same thing that happened to India in ODI WC Final 2023 . When you lose 3 wickets within 12 overs in a final , entire Team panics . There was a huge chance that could have been bowled out under 200 if they took more risk . Happened to Australia in league game against India in 2023 WC
This is what made Desilva’s knock in WC semi-final against India in 96 so legendary. SL lost their top 3 wickets within 20 runs but guy kept counter attacking

 

[Sunil1z]

Also Bevan and Steve Waugh played similar knock in 1999 WC semi-final against SA . If not for Warne’s magic , SA would have cruised to victory in 45-46 overs .
Batting first in knockout games comes with a huge risk because you don’t know the par score .

 

[Kenneth Viljoen]

Well done India. I think the bottom line is that the tournament and scheduling was in their favour, but you can’t blame the players for that. This is a team that had Jadeja walking out at 8 and six proper bowling options.

The thing is though , this did not happen by accident , this was deliberately set up to favour India and that's what people have issue with .

This is the second ICC tournament in a row where India had special privilege of scheduling, in the T20 WC Cup all their group games were scheduled in New York and one match in Florida , this was not the same for all teams , and then they were granted a semi final in Guyana if they qualified for the knockouts irrespective if they finished first or second. What the hell is that ? To be honest I'm more angry at the ICC for allowing this , we are opening the door for unethical cricketing practices which happened in the 90's with match fixing because the governing body values money over ethics.

 

[Sunil1z]

Slight correction
1. PCB could have hosted India at 2 places in UAE ( Dubai and Sharjah) . They didn’t to cut cost
2. Pakistan also enjoyed similar scheduling to India ( maybe except SF part ) but they didn’t qualify for the 2nd round in 2024 WT20

However I do agree with your other points that ICC should stop fixing India’s schedule.

 

[Sunil1z]

Since we are discussing fixing schedule, ICC should also stop putting INDIA/Pakistan and Australia/England in the same group. Let them be in separate groups. Viewership would be more if they meet each other in knockouts than league match .

 

[Moss]

They were afraid of batting collapse . This is the same thing that happened to India in ODI WC Final 2023 . When you lose 3 wickets within 12 overs in a final , entire Team panics . There was a huge chance that could have been bowled out under 200 if they took more risk . Happened to Australia in league game against India in 2023 WC
This is what made Desilva’s knock in WC semi-final against India in 96 so legendary. SL lost their top 3 wickets within 20 runs but guy kept counter attacking

Correct. Also, someone made the valid point that guys Mitchell and Phillips tend to read spin off the pitch and not the hand. In conditions like these and/or with this quality of bowling, it limits your scoring options especially if you're in rebuild mode. Sure, can be critical of Mitchell for the go-slow, but it's either that or the Bazball approach which I highly doubt would have got NZ even to 220.

That's why someone like Latham should be very disappointed. With his reputation for being good against spin, lbw Jadeja 14 in both games playing across the line is not good enough.

 

[Molehill]

Congrats India, the best team in the tournament on Dubai soil. Sadly, we'd never know if it was the same in Pakistan, but suspect they probably would've been too.

Hopefully, this tournament is a wake up call to the ICC that we should never have to go through a similar shitshow again......well at least until next year anyway!!

Terrible tournament though, and not just from an England perspective. Memorable games can be counted on about 3 fingers.

 

[RMBolton]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course, but a left-field selection in Ajaz would have been interesting to see. As I've said in these threads before, I wish we'd taken him over on stand-by for Henry given we knew how the Dubai pitch was going to play.



Ajaz in for O'Rourke and Conway in for Smith would have been my play.

Two things:

1. Ajaz has never played an ODI. It's the one format he's never played for NZ
2. He's been injured for some time.

One big advantage that India had was that they could plan their squad based on Dubai conditions and pack the squad with spinners. If NZ knew they would qualify for the final and face India in Dubai, they may have taken Ish Sodhi instead of say Nathan Smith or Duffy in their squad. All other teams had to plan their squad for two different conditions while India had to plan for only one.

Thing is, NZ knew they would have to go to Dubai being in India's group. They still didn't pick Sodhi. I think he's been de facto dropped from the ODI team & wrote him off.

 

[RMBolton]

I won't lie & say I'm not disappointed. No matter the calibre of the opposition (& we're dealing with top class opposition), to keep making it this far & not go all the way is frustrating.

 

[Jan Hfyz]

Many Many Congratulations to Team India for winning the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 ! Rohit Sharma's Captaincy is unmatchable as he plays smart cricket. Although, somehow we all gonna feel sorry for the Kiwi's who made it to the end but can't lift the trophy again ! They deserve to win as well but we are sorry when you face India in the Finals, they are not going to show mercy.
Now all eyes will be on IPL 2025

 

[ankitj]

They were afraid of batting collapse . This is the same thing that happened to India in ODI WC Final 2023 . When you lose 3 wickets within 12 overs in a final , entire Team panics . There was a huge chance that could have been bowled out under 200 if they took more risk . Happened to Australia in league game against India in 2023 WC
This is what made Desilva’s knock in WC semi-final against India in 96 so legendary. SL lost their top 3 wickets within 20 runs but guy kept counter attacking

Which underscores how big a moment Kuldeep picking their top 2 batters in 2 overs was.

Also SL pioneered the long ass batting line-up trend in ODI cricket. They were the first team to play "proper" batters down to #7 (proper in quotes because half of them had very unflattering averages). Their batters just kept coming.

 

[honestbharani]

They had Vaas and Dharmasena at 8 and 9 in the 1996 WC. Unreal depth. But RSA probably beat them even in that.

Aus also had Warne and Reiffel at 8 and 9, so they were no mugs either.

 

[ankitj]

Every team had Warne, Reiffel, Vaas, Dharmsena level batters in their tail. Playing with 7 proper batsmen was unusual back in the the day.