India brace for Australia challenge in first Champions Trophy semi-final

World Champions Australia’s optimistic travel from Pakistan to Dubai has not gone to waste since they will now meet India in the first semi-final of the ICC Champions Trophy here on Tuesday. And hoping to inflict a similar type of defeat as witnessed when these two teams last met during the T20 World Cup last year, and at some level wipe away some of the pain from the 2023 ODI World Cup final, are the only unbeaten team from Group A, India. 

After their Pakistan leg finished, Australia flew out of Lahore for the UAE with hopes that they would not have to return 48 hours later based on the result of the India-New Zealand match in Dubai on Sunday. India’s 44-run win over the Black Caps has kept Steve Smith’s team here and forced South Africa, who followed Australia on a three-hour flight from Pakistan to the UAE, to turn around on Monday. 

The much-maligned schedule of the Champions Trophy when it comes to India’s schedule – they play all their games in Dubai in a tournament nominally hosted by Pakistan – has left the Australians with very little time to get used to conditions in Dubai. In contrast, Rohit Sharma and his team-mates have played all their cricket here and have been able to make the most of what have been more spin-friendly surfaces then seen in Pakistan. 

Having picked five spin-bowling options in their squad for the Champions Trophy, India on Sunday unleashed the fourth one, Varun Chakravarthy, to devastating effect. The all-sorts spinner claimed 5/42 in his tournament debut as nine of 10 Black Caps wickets fell to the slow men. 

This puts Chakravarthy in a space from where he surely cannot be dropped to bring back in Harshit Rana, which leaves India to continue with four spinners and two pacers in Mohammed Shami and Hardik Pandya, or else drop Kuldeep Yadav to accommodate a third quick. 

Earlier in Sunday’s game the Kiwi spinners did indeed have a role to say in India’s struggles, but in what could be a portent of things to come in Tuesday’s semi-final, it was pace that did the real damage to an Indian lineup not really tested in Dubai before this game. 

Matt Henry took five wickets and Will O’Rourke and Kyle Jamieson one each as, backed by some terrific fielding – including three one-handed grabs – New Zealand kept India to 249. Australia can thus look at their pace options and wonder if the trio of Spencer Johnson (a left-armer, India’s bane), Nathan Ellis and Ben Dwarshius can similarly put the tournament favourites under the pump. 

When India lost their top three to slip to 30/3, it looked as it matters had taken a dramatic turn. But to recover from that scoreline to put up what proved a winning total underlines what Pat Cummins’ team had focused on during its stunning run to the World Cup title in 2023: get Shreyas Iyer fast and your chances of winning increase multifold.

Iyer has four fifties and a 44 in his last six ODI games and has been the fulcrum of India’s middle order. Cummins and his core famously singled out Iyer as the big scalp when these two teams met in Ahmedabad on November 19, 2023 and we can expect the same under Smith’s leadership.

So, while India will be tempted to repeat the four-spinner approach less than two days later, it could be that Australia, apart from having one of India’s nemeses in Adam Zampa, go full throttle with pace on a slower and trickier Dubai surface than what they’ve been playing on in Pakistan. 

The one forced change in Australia’s 11 will be the inclusion of Jake Fraser-McGurk for the injured Matt Short. In his seven ODI games so far, Fraser-McGurk has one score more than 16 and in List A cricket he averages a lowly 13.70. 

India probable XI: 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 KL Rahul (wk), 6 Axar Patel, 7 Hardik Pandya, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 Mohammed Shami, 10 Kuldeep Yadav, 11 Varun Chakravarthy

Australia likely 11: 1 Jake Fraser-McGurk, 2 Travis Head, 3 Steve Smith (capt), 4 Marnus Labuschagne, 5 Josh Inglis (wk), 6 Alex Carey (wk), 7 Glenn Maxwell, 8 Ben Dwarshius, 9 Nathan Ellis, 10 Adam Zampa, 11 Spencer Johnson