DUBAI (Kashmir English): New Zealand and India will clash in the 12th Match (Group A) of the ICC Champions Trophy at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium today (Sunday) just to see who they will meet in the semifinals starting from Tuesday (March 4).
Both the team have already qualified for the semifinals and Today’s match will determine who is number 1 in the Group A. So, it’s a battle for Group A supremacy.
Having secured the semi-final berths already, India and New Zealand know exactly where and when their respective semi-finals will be played.
All that remains to be decided is whom they’ll play there, it’s a choice between Australia and South Africa.
India have a one-day gap only before their semifinal game on March 4. There’s a chance of big names resting today, and also of key bowlers not completing their full 10-over quotas.
There’s something special about today’s game. India’s Virat Kohli will be playing his 300th ODI. He will be the 22nd player on world stage and seventh from India to get to that landmark.
Indians are the winners in each of their last five completed ODIs against New Zealand; New Zealand won five in a row before that stretch.
ICC Champions Trophy semi-finals
The semi-finalists for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 are confirmed with India and New Zealand qualifying from Group A, and Australia and South Africa from Group B.
Interestingly, the same four nations featured in the semis of the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup.
India will play in the first semi-final, in Dubai on Tuesday while New Zealand will play in the second, in Lahore on March 5.
Final of the tournament will be played on March 9 (Sunday).
India (probable): 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 Rishabh Pant (wk), 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Washington Sundar, 9 Harshit Rana, 10 Kuldeep Yadav/Varun Chakravarthy, 11 Mohammed Shami/Arshdeep Singh.
New Zealand (probable): 1 Devon Conway, 2 Rachin Ravindra, 3 Kane Williamson, 4 Daryl Mitchell, 5 Tom Latham (wk), 6 Glenn Phillips, 7 Michael Bracewell, 8 Mitchell Santner (capt), 9 Kyle Jamieson, 10 Matt Henry, 11 Will O’Rourke.
