DUBAI: India playing all their ICC Champions Trophy matches in Dubai was a pre-tournament decision and the talk of unfair advantage is baseless, the team’s batting coach said on Friday.

Rohit Sharma’s team face New Zealand in the title clash on Sunday at the Dubai International Stadium, where India have been unbeaten in four matches.

India refused to tour hosts Pakistan in the eight-nation tournament due to political tensions and were given Dubai as their venue in the United Arab Emirates.

“The draw that happened, it happened before,” batting coach Sitanshu Kotak told reporters. “After India winning four matches, if people feel that there is an advantage, then I don’t know what to say about it.”

India and Pakistan, the nuclear-armed neighbours, have had strained relations since their independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

Having fought three wars, two of them on the territory of Jammu and Kashmir, which has remained disputed to date with both the countries holding the Himalayan region in part.

India last toured Pakistan in 2008 to play the Asia Cup ODI tournament. After the Nov 26 Mumbai incident the same year, New Delhi changed its policy towards bilateral cricket with Pakistan that was itself jolted by the terror attack on the touring Sri Lankan team in Lahore on March 3, 2009. This attack closed doors of international cricket in Pakistan for the next eight years or so.

After the BJP came to power in 2014, the cricketing relations between Pakistan and India became strained with the latter refusing to send their cricket teams to the neighbouring country while the former played on India soil in the ICC-managed global events including the 2023 ODI World Cup. In the past three years, several other top-level teams including Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa have toured Pakistan without any major security issues. Many players of these countries have also been competing in the Pakistan Super League (PSL), a franchise-based T20 annual event since 2018.

As the BJP government maintained its stubborn stance of refusing to send its cricketers to Pakistan for the Feb 19-March 9 ICC Champions Trophy, the event became increasingly uncertain. Eventually, a two-way hybrid model was reached between the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) according to which both the countries will play their matches in future ICC events — up to 2027 — on neutral venues.

Interestingly, India which has not played any bilateral series with Pakistan since the 2013 limited-overs series, has faced their arch-rivals in all International Cricket Council events at different venues in the cricketing world.

The ongoing tournament’s tangled schedule, with teams flying in and out of the UAE from Pakistan while India have stayed put, has been hugely controversial.

South Africa batsman David Miller said “it was not an ideal situation” for his team to fly in to Dubai to wait on India’s semi-final opponent and then fly back to Lahore in less than 24 hours.

Even nominal hosts Pakistan had to jump on a jet and fly to Dubai to play India, rather than face them on home soil.

The pitches have been vastly different in the two countries.

Pakistan tracks produced big totals, in contrast to the slow and turning decks of the Dubai stadium.

“End of the day, I think in a game, you have to play good cricket every day when you turn up,” the 52-year-old Kotak said. “So the only thing they [critics] may say is that we play here. But that is how the draw is.

“So nothing else can happen in that. It is not that after coming here, they changed something and we got an advantage,” he added.

India have been the team to beat after they topped Group ‘A’, which had New Zealand, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

They then beat Australia in the first semi-final.

New Zealand, led by Mitchell Santner, lost the last group game to India by 44 runs before they beat South Africa in the second semi-final in Lahore.

Kotak said the previous result between the two teams will have no bearing on their mindset going into the final.

“That depends how the New Zealand team thinks, but I think we should not think that,” said Kotak.

“We should just try and turn up and play a good game of cricket because there is no use thinking about the last match.”

New Zealand head coach Gary Stead said they are not too worried about India’s advantage.

“I mean, look, the decision around that’s out of our hands,” said Stead. “So, it’s not something we worry about too much. India have got to play all their games here in Dubai. But as you said, we have had a game here and we’ll learn very quickly from that experience there as well.

“And if we’re good enough to beat India on Sunday, then I’m sure we’ll be very, very happy.”

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2025