WATCH: Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson share warm hug after India’s win over New Zealand

Team India beat New Zealand in the final league match of Champions Trophy 2025 on Sunday. The 44-run win meant that the Men in Blue finished top of Group A with six points and will now play Australia in the first semi-finals on Tuesday. Once the match ended players were seen greeting each other, and the cameras panned to Virat Kohli giving Kane Williamson a warm embrace. 

Kohli playing his 300th ODI match was out for just 11 runs thanks to a brilliant catch by Glenn Phillps. On the other hand, Kane Williamson scored 81 runs with the bat to keep his team in the hunt while chasing the 250-run target set by India. The former New Zealand skipper was out in the final ball of the 41st over to Axar Patel. 

Watch the video here - 

Virat Kohli hugged Kane Williamson tightly after the match 🥹❤️ pic.twitter.com/k2zJ3hqLgs

— Virat Kohli Fan Club (@Trend_VKohli) March 2, 2025

Varun Chakravarthy hogged all the headlines as the 33-year-old just playing his second ODI grabbed a fifer. His figures of 5/42 were the second-best by an Indian bowler in Champions Trophy history after Ravindra Jadeja’s 5/36 in the 2013 edition. New Zealand will play South Africa in Wednesday’s second semi-final in Lahore. 

Spin plays a huge role in India’s win 

Indian skipper Rohit Sharma decided to bring on his spinners early as run-scoring getting difficult. Hardik Pandya was the only pacer from India to take a wicket while the rest nine of the nine wickets were snapped by the spin bowlers. The decision to go in with four spin bowlers paid rich dividends as the Kiwi batters found runs hard to come by. 

Varun Chakravarthy bowled 10 overs and took five wickets for 42 runs. Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel picked a wicket each and gave away just 68 runs from their combined 18 overs of left-arm spin. Kuldeep Yadav who got the final wicket of the game was a tad expensive having conceded 56 runs from his 9.3 overs. 

As far as batting was concerned, India’s top three batters failed to put a significant score on the board. Shreyas Iyer dug his team out of the hole with his 79-run knock and also added 98 runs for the fourth wicket with Axar Patel. The first semi-final match on Tuesday will witness a few key battles as both teams are stacked with match-winners.