India's legendary opener Sunil Gavaskar has delivered the final verdict on the criticism around Rohit Sharma-led side having advantage of playing all their ICC Champions Trophy 2025 matches in Dubai. Gavaskar echoed head coach Gautam Gambhir's sentiments as he called those questioning India as 'cribbers'. He went on to call India the best white-ball team on the planet for their consistent performances in the recent past.
"Without a question, any team that reaches all three finals, the 50-over final where they finished as runners-up, the T20 World Cup victory, and now the Champions Trophy must be considered the best white-ball team on the planet," Gavaskar told India Today.
“There's no doubt whatsoever. Cribbers might crib, as Gambhir said, but to be able to reach all these finals, with no home advantage, and still win, speaks for itself,” he added.
Earlier, after India's win over Steve Smith's Australia in the semifinal, Gambhir had rubbished talks of home-like advantage in Dubai.
"There's a lot of debate about the undue advantage and all that. What undue advantage? We haven't practised here even for a day. We're practising at the ICC Academy. If you look at the wickets there and here, the difference is between the ground and the sky. Some people are just perpetual cribbers, man. They've got to grow up. So, I feel that there was nothing like we had any undue advantage or we had planned something like that," said Gambhir.
Gambhir's tenure so far
This is Gambhir's first ICC trophy win as head coach. He took over from Rahul Dravid who helped India break their ICC tournament jinx with the T20 World Cup 2024 triumph in Barbados.
Gambhir faced harsh criticism after India's ODI series loss on Sri Lanka soil followed by Test series whitewash at home against New Zealand and failing to retain Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 on Australian soil. Gambhir was also criticised for picking Harshit Rana and Varun Chakravarthy as late additions to the squad. However, Rana performed well but Chakravarthy took it up a notch by taking nine wickets for just three matches.