Head coach Gautam Gambhir on Tuesday dismissed claims that India had any unfair advantage by being stationed in Dubai for the ICC Champions Trophy, emphasising that his side did not even train at the match venue after their arrival.
India played all its matches at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium and reached the final of the ICC marquee event with an unbeaten record.
“I know there’s a lot of debate about the undue advantage. But what is an undue advantage? First, this is as much of a neutral venue for us as it is for any other team. I don’t remember which tournament we played in this stadium last time,” Gambhir said in the post-match press conference after India defeated Australia by four wickets in the semi-finals.
“We haven’t practised here even for a day. We trained at the ICC Academy. The conditions there and here are completely different. Some people are just perpetual cribbers. So, I feel we didn’t have any undue advantage,” he added.
Gambhir also stated that India did not deliberately plan to play four spinners or select them based on any prior knowledge of the conditions.
“The plan was that if you pick two spinners in a 15-member squad, then if we play in Pakistan or anywhere else, we’ll pick two because this is a competition in the subcontinent. So, we didn’t plan to play any spinners.
“If you look at it, we’ve only played two or three spinners in the last two matches, and the rest were all-rounders,” he added.
Skipper Rohit Sharma once again played a brief but impactful innings, scoring a 29-ball 28, and Gambhir lauded him for setting the right tone.
“If your team plays with this kind of tempo, it just sends a positive signal to the dressing room that we want to be fearless and courageous. You evaluate with the stats; we evaluate with the impact.
“As journalists, as experts, you only look at the numbers, not the averages. But as a coach, as a team, we don’t look at numbers or averages. If the captain puts his hand up first, nothing is more interesting than that,” he added.