Team India reached the semifinals of ICC Champions Trophy 2025 with three wins a row. However, the team has faced criticism from many former and current cricketers who have said that India have an advantage playing all their matches in Dubai. They said that India don't have to travel, adapt to different conditions or have the selection dilemma like other teams. Ahead of the semifinal against Australia, captain Rohit Sharma had a strong retort to the barrage of criticism coming India's way. He said that India don't play often in Dubai and it is not like they have an home advantage there.
"Every time, the pitch is giving you different challenges. The three matches that we played here, the pitch has 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 during the pre-match press conference.
While the pitches have been spin-friendly, Rohit said that he is unaware of the track which will be used for the match against Australia.
"There are four or five surfaces that are being used here. See, I don't know which pitch is going to be played in the semifinals. But whatever happens, we will have to adapt and see what is happening and what is not. And we will play on that," he added.
Rohit reveals Dubai pitch hasn't behaved the same in all games
The 37-year-old pointed out that the pitch and conditions have not been the same in all three matches. He said that there was asisstance for New Zealand pacers on March 2. Also, there was not much spin in the game against Pakistan.
"We saw that when the (New Zealand) bowlers were bowling, it was swinging a little bit. We did not see it in the first two games when our bowlers were bowling. In the last game, we did not get to see that much spin, today there was a bit of it.
"So, there are different things happening on every surface. So, it is not like we know what is going to happen on this pitch and what is not going to happen," the opener said.
Rohit on adapting to conditions
However, Rohit did admit that they had time to adapt to conditions as they arrived a few days prior to the game.
"It was important for us to adapt quickly to these conditions. Luckily, we came here five or six days before, we had good training sessions and the pitches at the (ICC) Academy were very much similar to what we are going to get here.
"So, the adaptation is the key when you play on any surface and we adapted pretty well in all three games," he further added.
