DUBAI: Skipper Rohit Sharma paid rich tributes to India’s spin attack on Sunday saying they played a key role in the team’s successful ICC Champions Trophy campaign in Dubai.

India refused to travel to host nation Pakistan because of strained political relations between the bitter neighbours, who play each other only in global tournaments.

Allowed to play all their matches in Dubai, a spin-friendly venue which typically produced low-scoring contests, India restricted New Zealand to a modest 251-7 in the final and chased down the target with one over to spare.

Their spin quartet of Varun Chakravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja bowled a combined 38 overs conceding only 144 runs and sharing five wickets among them.

“Not just this game but from the beginning [of the tournament], I thought our spinners in particular [excelled],” Rohit said.

“There is so much expectation when you play on a pitch like this but they never disappointed.

“We used that to our advantage, we played some very good cricket and our bowling was very consistent.”

Rohit was particularly pleased with Chakravarthy, who took five wickets in a group match against New Zealand in Dubai, and claimed two in the final against the same opponents.

“He’s got something different about him,” Rohit said of the ‘mystery spinner’ whose variations include off-break, leg-break, googly and the ‘carrom ball’ that he pushes with his knuckle.

“He didn’t start in the tournament for us but he got five wickets against New Zealand and we saw the ability he possesses with the ball. We wanted to maximise that.”

Mitchell Santner, in his first global tournament as New Zealand skipper, was not too unhappy how they fared in the eight-team competition.

“It’s been a good tournament… We played some good cricket today, but we fell short to a better team,” the spinner said.

Santner felt they could not dominate the Indian spinners in the middle overs.

“We lost a few wickets after the powerplay and they really got the squeeze on.

“Credit to how they played, they’re world class spin bowlers. We were probably about 20 runs under what we wanted but we just went out looking to restrict them.”

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2025