India and Australia will be facing each other in the first semifinal of the Champions Trophy 2025 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Tuesday, March 4. 

India topped Group A after registering wins in all of their three matches, while the Aussies finished second in Group B, after winning one and seeing their remaining two games getting washed out.

India are the only ones to have won all of their three matches in the tournament after they registered a hat-trick of wins following their win over New Zealand. 

There have been talks of India getting an unfair advantage of playing all of their games in Dubai, however, captain Rohit Sharma dismissed such talks, saying that Dubai is not there home. “Every time, the pitch is giving you different challenges. In the three matches that we played here, the pitch behaved differently. This is not our home, this is Dubai. We don’t play so many matches here, and this is new for us too,” Rohit said in the pre-match press conference.

Dubai International Cricket Stadium pitch report

The pitches at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium have been largely slow with run-scoring not being that easy. India found it a bit tough to chase 229 against Bangladesh in their first game before defending 249 with ease against New Zealand in their last group game. 

There has been spin troubling the batters, especially in the second innings. The 42.22 average of the spinners drop to 24.76 in the second innings, which tell the spinners are effective in the second essay. 

Dubai International Cricket Stadium – The Numbers Game

ODI Stats

Total Matches – 61

Matches won batting first – 23

Matches won bowling first – 36

Average 1st innings Score – 219

Average 2nd innings Score – 193

Highest total recorded – 355/5 (50 Ovs) By ENG vs PAK

Lowest total recorded – 91/10 (31.1 Ovs) By NAM vs UAE

Highest score chased – 287/8 (49.4 Ovs) By SL vs PAK

Lowest score defended – 168/10 (46.3 Ovs) By UAE vs NEP

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 Chakravarthy, Rishabh Pant, Washington Sundar, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana

Australia Squad: Jake Fraser-McGurk, Travis Head, Steven Smith(c), Marnus Labuschagne, Josh Inglis(w), Alex Carey, Glenn Maxwell, Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Adam Zampa, Spencer Johnson, Sean Abbott, Aaron Hardie, Tanveer Sangha, Cooper Connolly