Champions Trophy Final: The thrill of winning in spin magic on both sides
It will be India taking on New Zealand in the summit clash in the ninth edition of Champions Trophy in Dubai on Sunday (March 9), a re-match from the last Sunday where India came up trumps. India are the only unbeaten side in the tournament while New Zealand have booked their place having played across all the four different venues.
New Zealand have gained some invaluable experience having played once in Dubai and on paper, look the best equipped to upset India’s applecart. New Zealand were India’s bugbear in ICC events not so long ago, but India have had the recent advantage over them, winning each of the last six ODIs against them – three of those in ICC events.
There will be only one selection call for each team to make: for India whether to bring in an additional seamer in place of Kuldeep Yadav, though that will leave them without an option to take the ball away from the left handers heavy New Zealand batting line-up. Runs have dried up for Will Young after the hundred in the opening game and they might ponder on whether to include another southpaw in Devon Conway.
This will be the fifth match in Dubai and will be played on the same wicket as the India-Pakistan game, which was the center wicket. The wickets in Dubai have been slow and sluggish offering something for both spin and seam while batters who have absorbed pressure and played the waiting game have made runs here.
One pattern that emerged from the four games in Dubai has been that whichever team’s spinners came out on top went on to win the game that day. The tracks have offered some degree of turn but are far from being labelled rank turners.
The two facets that have bought spin in play here are bowlers who can bowl quick and straight – two parameters that India excel at. Balls projected to hit the stumps have averaged 20.59 to 53.23 to those that aren’t while balls clocked over 90+kph have averaged 25.50 to 45.21 for those bowled below 90. India’s spinners have bowled 52.5% of the balls above 90 kph, the highest among all teams. 34.9% of their balls are projected at the stumps, second highest after Pakistan while New Zealand is not very far behind at 33.2%.
Squads:
India Squad: Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, KL Rahul(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy, Washington Sundar, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Rishabh Pant
New Zealand Squad: Will Young, Rachin Ravindra, Kane Williamson, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham(w), Glenn Phillips, Michael Bracewell, Mitchell Santner(c), Matt Henry, Kyle Jamieson, William ORourke, Nathan Smith, Mark Chapman, Devon Conway, Jacob Duffy
