Gambhir lambasts one-venue critics, Shami admits it as an advantage

Indian coach Gautam Gambhir lambasted the critics over the unfair advantage remark of playing their matches at the same venue in the ongoing Champion Trophy.

India defeated Australia by four wickets in the semi-final to notch up their fourth straight win in the tournament in Dubai. India are playing all their matches in Dubai as they refused to travel to Pakistan because of political tension between the two countries.

Whereas the other teams are juggling between Pakistan and India to play their matches. Even the host nation Pakistan had to come to Dubai to play with India, which they lost and were sent packing from the tourney.

South Africa came to the UAE in anticipation of playing their semi-final with India. As it was not confirmed where India would finish in the group stage.

India defeated New Zealand in the last league game and set up a semi clash with Australia.  South had to fly back to Pakistan without playing a single ball and Australia were flown in.

The other teams and former cricketers have accused Indian of having an unfair advantage of playing all their matches in one venue. They know the pitches well and have got acclimatized to the conditions. Moreover, they are also avoiding the travelling hassles.

“It is as much a neutral venue for us as for anyone else. This is not our home ground. I don’t remember which tournament we played here last time,” said an angry Gambhir after the match.

“Our plan was to field two frontline spinners. Even if we would have been playing in Pakistan we would have fielded at least two genuine spinners because the tournament is being played in the sub-continent,” he added.

India played with four spinners in the last two games against New Zealand and Australia, which they won comfortably. Hardik Pandya, an all-rounder, was given the role of shouldering the burden with pace spearhead Mohammad Shami to open the bowling as Harshit Rana was dropped.

The controversy was stoked by the fact that India named a spin-heavy squad with Dubai in mind. Gambhir denied it vehemently.

“It is nothing like that, we wanted to set up a spin trap,” said an agitated Gambhir.

“Picking up two frontline spinners in a 15-member squad is not too much. Why do people forget out of the four spinners, two are genuine all-rounders and they are great assets to the team.

“If you see, in the first two matches, we played with just one frontline spinner. We fielded two frontline spinners in the last two matches only. So there were no such plans,” added an agitated Gambhir.

"And there's a lot of controversy about the undue advantage. What undue advantage? We are not practising here. We're doing our practice at the ICC Academy.

"If you look at the pitches there and here, there is 180 degree difference between the two. 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."

Mohammed Shami bowls during a practice session. File

Meanwhile, contrary to the views of his coach, Shami admitted to having a fair bit of advantage playing at the same venue. Shami took three wickets, conceding 48 runs to help India thwart Australia to 264.

“It definitely helped us because we know the conditions and the behaviour of the pitch. It is a plus point that you are playing all the matches at one venue,” said Shami after the match in Dubai.

Shami has been instrumental in India’s run-up to the final. He took a five-wicket haul against Bangladesh in the opening match to set the tempo for the tournament.

Shami returned to the team after a long lay-off of two-and-a-half years. But, there was no trace of his absence from the game for such a long time in his performance.

When asked about getting the reverse swing with the old ball, Shami used the media to request the custodians of the game to allow the use of saliva.

“We are trying to reverse, we don’t get to use saliva during the game. The bowlers are constantly appealing to allow the use of saliva and it will make the game more competitive and interesting,” added Shami.

Bowlers from ages used saliva to shine one side of the ball so that the rough side soaks the dew and becomes slightly heavier, helping the ball to swing. In reverse swing, the ball swings toward the shiny side which makes the life of batsmen difficult.

Since the outbreak of coronavirus in 2019, the use of saliva was banned to stop the spread of the disease, which in its early stages was considered as highly contagious.

Apart from the ban on using saliva, most of the rules in cricket have been bent in the favour of batsmen, who are the pampered babies of the game.