India playing all their champions trophy matches in Dubai was a decision before the tournament and the speech on an unjust advantage is baseless, said the team’s stick on Friday.
On Sunday, the Rohit Sharma team will face New Zealand during the title shock at the Dubai International Stadium, where India was undefeated in four games.
India refused to visit Pakistan hosts in the eight nations tournament due to political tensions and received Dubai as a place in the United Arab Emirates.
“The draw that happened, it happened before,” Batting coach Sitanshu Kotak told journalists. “After India has won four games, if people feel that there is an advantage, then I don’t know what to say.”
The tangled calendar of the tournament, with teams flying in and out of Pakistan’s water while India remained on site, was extremely controversial.
The drummer of South Africa, David Miller, said that “it was not an ideal situation” for his team to fly to Dubai to wait for the opponent in the Indian semi-finals, then return to Lahore in less than 24 hours.
Even the nominal hosts Pakistan had to jump on a jet and fly away for Dubai to play India, rather than facing them on a soil at home.
The locations were very different in the two countries.
The Pakistani tracks produced large total, unlike the slow and turned decks of the Dubai stadium.
“At the end of the day, I think that in a game, you have to play the right cricket every day when you introduce yourself,” said Kotak, 52. “So the only thing they (criticism) can say is that we play here. But that’s how the draw.”
“So, nothing else can happen. It is not only after having come here, they changed something and we got an advantage,” he added.
India was the team to beat after exceeding group A, who 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 match against India by 44 points before beating South Africa in the second semi-final in Lahore.
Kotak said that the previous result between the two teams would have no impact on their state of mind in the final.
“It depends on how the New Zealand team thinks, but I think we shouldn’t think about it,” Kotak said.
“We should just try to introduce yourself and play a good cricket game because it is useless to think about the last game.”
New Zealand head coach Gary Stead said they were not too worried about India’s advantage.
“I mean, look, the decision around our hands,” said Stead.
“So, that’s not something we are too worried about. India must play all their games here in Dubai. But as you said, we had a game here and we will learn very quickly from this experience there.”
“And if we are good enough to beat India on Sunday, then I’m sure we will be very, very happy,” he added.
FK /