Australia skipper Steve Smith won the toss and elected to bat first in the first semi-final of the ongoing ICC Champions Trophy against India on Tuesday.
India topped Group A, winning all three of their matches against Bangladesh, Pakistan, and New Zealand, while Australia finished second in Group B, behind South Africa.
This is the first time the two teams are facing each other in a 50-over contest since the 2023 Men’s Cricket World Cup Final. Although India finished second-best in Ahmedabad that night, they edged past Australia in their most recent ICC tournament meeting on their way to winning the Men’s T20 World Cup title.
“We’ll have a bat. Looks like a pretty dry surface. The guys had a couple of sessions and are ready to go. It should take turn. India is a very good side. Two changes—Cooper Connolly comes in for Short, and Sangha replaces Johnson,” Steve Smith said after winning the toss.
India captain Rohit Sharma acknowledged the unpredictability of Dubai’s pitch.
“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 well in all three games, and that’s what we’ll try to continue. It’s going to be challenging. We are playing with the same team and want to carry forward our momentum. Now that we are bowling first, we need to restrict them to as low a total as possible,” Rohit Sharma said.
Playing XIs:
Australia: Cooper Connolly, Travis Head, Steven Smith (c), Marnus Labuschagne, Josh Inglis (wk), Alex Carey, Glenn Maxwell, Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Adam Zampa, Tanveer Sangha.
India: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy.
