Familiar foes but quite different-looking teams, at least for Australia, who are without now five of their first-choice players with injuries going up constantly in the build-up and while the tournament is going on. Champions Trophy is a unique tournament because of the brevity of its format as two weeks later we have just half the teams remaining from when it started and a few days from now, a team will be celebrating at the podium white white blazers on and a shining silverware in hands.
India have a good chance to grab it as they have been able to adjust and play ODI cricket well, especially when they found themselves in trouble at a couple of critical junctures in the tournament, first in the Bangladesh encounter and then against New Zealand. Australia have done well with the bat but will need to keep a check on Indian batting to have a chance. Australia can take a leaf out of New Zealand’s book in how to deal with Indian batting on the Dubai surface. Even though the pace attack lacks inexperience, the variety and quality is there to challenge any batting unit in the world.
For India, it will be more of the same with Varun Chakravarthy expected to retain his spot in the side after picking up a fifer on his debut in the ICC ODI events. If India bat first get anywhere around 260-270, it will be a challenge for Australia to chase down facing four quality spinners from the opposition.
My Dream11 team for ICC Champions Trophy Semi-final 1, IND vs AUS
Shubman Gill (vc), Virat Kohli, Travis Head, Steve Smith (c), Shreyas Iyer, Alex Carey, Axar Patel, Ben Dwarshius, Glenn Maxwell, Adam Zampa, Varun Chakaravarthy
Probable Playing XIs
India: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana/Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Varun Chakaravarthy
Australia: Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wk), Jake Fraser-McGurk/Cooper Connolly, Steve Smith (c), Marnus Labuschagne, Alex Carey, Glenn Maxwell, Ben Dwarshius, Nathan Ellis, Adam Zampa, Spencer Johnson
