Unbeaten India in Champions Trophy final

For all practical purposes, the first semifinal of the ongoing ICC Champions Trophy truly came to life at the fall of Virat Kohli’s wicket in the 43^rd over of the chase. Until then, almost everything had gone to plan for India, quasi-hosts of this knockout game, having played all their matches thus far in Dubai, including this one on Tuesday, albeit on a slow and low wicket which made scoring runs at a quick pace a real challenge for players from both sides.

Which is why it took all the know-how of the most-experienced player in the Australian side, stand-in skipper Steve Smith, to even get the team score to an under-par 264, with a painstaking innings of 73 runs. An innings that had only five boundary hits in them, just one of those a six.

No one in the history of ODI cricket can lead or prepare a chase better than India’s Kohli, who averages over 65 in them and has scored 28 out of his 51 ODI hundreds while reeling in a target, the latest of those coming against Pakistan earlier in the tournament. He set the tone to perfection once the openers, Shubman Gill and captain Rohit Sharma, were dismissed early. With a like minded Shreyas Iyer, fast turning into an ODI bedrock himself, Kohli found the gaps and ran the ones and twos hard, together putting on a boundaryless masterclass, as well as a stand of 91 runs. Then, with Axar Patel, the all-rounder with an attacking bent of nature, the pair added 44 more runs and alongside the slow and steady KL Rahul, they nurdled 47 runs.

With exactly 48 runs needed off as many balls at the start of the 43^rd over, bowled by the leg-spinner Adam Zampa, Rahul eased the pressure by tonking the spinner for a six. When Kohli looked to do the same, he was caught at long-on for 84 – an innings that had seen only five boundaries, all of them along the carpet until then. As Kohli was dismissed and the Aussies came charging back into the game, Rahul was seen telling a departing Kohli that he was attacking anyway, so he shouldn’t have. But the damage had been done.

In came Hardik Pandya, and the new man soon found himself consuming plenty of dot balls, 3 runs off 10 balls, even against the tempting spin of Tanveer Sangha, who had not allowed the Indian to score a run from the first four deliveries off the 45^th over. But next ball, Pandya broke the shackles with a 106 metre straight six to release most, if not all, the pressure.

Despite Australia’s limited resources in the bowling department (what with the absence of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins), Smith’s cunning captaincy and excellent use of fast bowler Nathan Ellis kept the 50-over world champions in the fixture. Ellis’s ninth over, the innings’s 46^th, was full of variations and cost Australia just one run, once again bringing down the balls left lower than the runs required: 24 and 27. So, as a last throw of the dice, Smith brought back Zampa for the final over of his bowling quota, and it worked somewhat, with only three runs eked from the first four balls, until Pandya decided that it was time to do or die. He did and survived.

Consecutive sixes off Zampa’s final two deliveries, both towering over long off, gave India 12 runs from two balls, hits that were as good as the end of the game. Even though Pandya perished in the following over while trying to bash Ellis for the winning runs and holing out instead, Rahul put an official end to the match, and Australia’s campaign, with a six off the first delivery of the penultimate over. Thus, India reached their fifth Champions Trophy final with 11 balls to spare, the eventual ease not quite an apt reflection of the gnarly contest.

Brief scores: Australia 264 all out in 49.3 overs (Steve Smith 73, Alex Carey 61; Mohammed Shami 3/48, Ravindra Jadeja 2/40) lost to India 267/6 in 48.1 overs (Virat Kohli 84, Shreyas Iyer 45; Nathan Ellis 2/49, Adam Zampa 2/60) by four wickets

Champions Trophy 2025cricketDubaiIndia-AustraliaKL RahulRavindra JadejaVirat KohliWeb Exclusive