Australia skipper Steve Smith won the toss and opted to bat against India in the semi-final match of Champions Trophy 2025 on Tuesday in Dubai. It was the 14th consecutive time that India lost the toss in ODI cricket. The last time when India won a toss in the ODI format was the World Cup 2023 semi-final against New Zealand. After opting to bat, Smith announced their Playing XI, which included Cooper Connolly, who came in as a replacement of an injured Matt Short. The biggest surprise came in the form of spinner Tanveer Sangha‘s inclusion.
Sangha, who is from the Indian-origin, replaced pacer Spencer Johnson and became the second main spinner for Australia after Adam Zampa. As Dubai’s pitch is dry and can favour spin, both the teams are ready with their spinners.
“We’ll have a bat. Looks a pretty dry surface, pretty dry square, we’ll like to get some runs on the board. The guys had a couple of sessions at the academy, ready to go, should be a good contest. Looks a lot drier, it should take more turn. Very good side – India – and we like coming up against them. We are looking forward to it. We’ve got two changes. Cooper Connolly comes in for Short, Tanveer Sangha comes in for Spencer Johnson,” Australia skipper Steve Smith said at the toss.
On the other hand, India remain unchanged, and captain Rohit Sharma said his side was prepared for both batting and bowling.
“I was prepared to do both. When you’re confused, it’s better to lose the toss. The pitch keeps changing its nature. You have to play good cricket. We’ve played good cricket in all three games and that’s what we’ll try to do. It’s going to be challenging. We are playing with the same team. We want to continue from where we left. Now that we are bowling first, we have to bowl well and restrict them to as low as possible,” Rohit said.
Indian team is wearing black armbands for the match in honour of the late Padmakar Shivalkar, who passed away on Monday. The legendary left-arm spinner was a stalwart of Indian domestic cricket, renowned for his unparalleled skill and dedication to the game.
Playing XIs
India: Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, KL Rahul(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy.
Australia: Cooper Connolly, Travis Head, Steven Smith(c), Marnus Labuschagne, Josh Inglis(w), Alex Carey, Glenn Maxwell, Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Adam Zampa, Tanveer Sangha.
(With IANS Inputs)
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