Srinagar: Australia captain Steve Smith has opened on the advantage India is having by playing all its ICC Champions Trophy-2025 matches in Dubai.
Former England cricketers Nasser Hussain, Michael Atherton and West Indies legend Vivian Richards had earlier spoken about India not travelling and being well versed with the Dubai pitch.
Ahead of the semi-final against India, Australia captain Steve Smith refrained from giving a definitive answer regarding the advantage bit. Still, he did say that India are very well versed with the conditions.
“In terms of an advantage, yeah, maybe, I’m not sure. Yeah, India obviously played all their games here. So they’ve seen what the surface is doing. Obviously, the whole square block’s pretty dry,” Smith told reporters at the pre-match press conference.
“Having spoken to the groundsman just now, it’s a dry surface, had a lot of traffic. So we’ve seen how the wickets are played. And India have obviously played really well in their games as well. So it’s going to be a good contest. We’re looking forward to it,” he added.
Australia and South Africa had travelled to Dubai before India’s last Group A match against New Zealand. However, after India’s victory, South Africa departed for Lahore to take on New Zealand in the second semi-final.
“We guessed right in the end. Ideal to be here and have a couple of days preparation. I think had we stayed and waited for last night’s result, we would have had to have flown here today and played tomorrow, not get a chance to train on the surface or get used to the conditions that we have at the academy,” said Smith.
“And if we had to go back, we would have just got on the same plane back as New Zealand and had a day there before playing. So it made sense to us,” he added.